BERKELEY 

GENERAL 
LibkARY 

UNIVERSITY    OF 
CALIFORNIA 


er 


PRACTICAL  DRY-FLY  FISHING 


PRACTICAL 
DRY-FLY  FISHING 


BY 
Emlyn   M.   Gill 

M 


NEW  YORK 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
1912 


Copyright,  1912,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
Published  May,  1912 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction vii 


I.     English  Dry-Fly  Methods  Modified  by 

American  Ideas  and  Conditions    .     .        3 

H.  "Fishing  the  Rise"  and  "Fishing  the 
Stream,"  and  a  Word  About  the  Eng- 
lish "Purist"  17 

III.  Largely    Statistical,    Describing    Rods, 

Lines,    Leaders,    Flies,    and    Other 
Tackle 27 

IV.  Showing  that  Americans  May  Use  the 

Dry-Fly,  Though  There  Is  No  Ameri- 
can Fly-Fisher's  Entomology    ...      38 

V.  Up-Stream  Fishing,  Methods  of  Casting, 
and  Some  Condensed  Rules  for  Using 
the  Floating  Fly 46 

VI.     Tying  an  Eyed-Fly  to  a  Leader,  and 

Some  Practice  on  a  Hypothetical  Pool      58 

VII.     In  which  the  Beginner  Visits  a  Real 
Pool,  from  which  a  Few  Trout  Are 

Taken 72 

[v] 


Contents 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

VIII.  How  the  Dry-Fly  May  Be  Used  on 
Rough  Waters  as  Well  as  on  Placid 
Pools 80 

IX.     That  Cruel  Thing,  the  "Drag,"  and  How 

Its  Evil  Effects  May  Be  Overcome  .      91 

X.  Wilderness  Fishing  Different  from  Tak- 
ing "Educated"  Trout  from  Much- 
Fished  Streams 105 

XI.  Often  Dry-Fly  Anglers  Like  Conditions 
that  Prove  the  Waterloo  of  the  Wet 
Fly  Man.  . 118 

XII.  Fine  and  Far-Off  Casting,  and  the  Value 
of  Close  Fishing,  When  Throwing  a 
Fly  Up-Stream 128 

XIII.  The  Advantages  of  Stalking  a  Trout 
from  Behind,  and  Examples  of  Good 
and  Bad  Generalship 138 

XIV.  Two  Old  Trout  of  the  Pools,  and  the 
Little  Dry-Fly  that  Finally  Accom- 
plished Their  Ruin 157 

XV.     Artificial  Dry-Flies,  and  a  Few  Words 

About  the  Living  Ephemeridce    .     .     172 

XVI.     The  History  of  the  Floating  Fly  and 

Some  of  Its  Interesting  Literature  .     .     188 

Appendix 209 


INTRODUCTION 

No  excuses  or  apologies  are  necessary 
for  offering  to  American  anglers  a  little 
treatise,  worthy  perhaps  of  a  not  more 
dignified  name  than  "hand-book,"  on 
dry-fly  fishing.  It  may  be  said  that 
the  subject  has  been  fully  covered  by 
a  number  of  expert  writers  who  have 
lived  in  the  home  of  the  dry-fly,  Eng- 
land, and  who  have  spent  many  years 
of  their  lives  in  practising  this  most 
delicate,  artistic  and  fascinating  of 
sports  on  the  English  chalk  streams, 
so  smooth,  so  placid,  and  fished  so  long 
and  so  constantly  that  to  take  from 
them  successfully  their  highly  "edu- 
cated" trout  more  scientific  methods 
than  those  offered  by  the  use  of  the  wet 

[vii] 


Introduction 

fly  had  to  be  devised.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  any  angling  writer  who  thought 
for  a  moment  that  he  could  go  over 
the  technical  ground  covered  by  Mr. 
Frederic  M.  Halford,  the  greatest  of 
English  writers  on  dry-fly  methods,  and 
do  it  successfully  without  much  repe- 
tition, or  suggest  many  new  or  start- 
ling improvements  over  Mr.  Halford's 
methods,  would,  indeed,  exhibit  a  self- 
assurance  that  would  be  most  abnor- 
mal, and  he  might  properly  be  called  an 
eccentric.  Mr.  Halford  did  not  invent 
the  dry-fly;  but  he  has  been  an  an- 
gling enthusiast  from  his  boyhood  days. 
He  has  been  the  happy  possessor  of  a 
keen  and  studious  mind.  His  one 
hobby  throughout  his  long  life  has 
been  the  dry-fly.  Most  fortunately  he 
has  had  almost  unlimited  time  to  de- 
vote to  its  study,  and  as  a  result  he  is 
the  greatest  recognized  authority  on 

[viii] 


Introduction 

this  subject.  When  a  very  young  man 
he  began  practising  this  method  of 
angling,  and  from  that  time  he  has 
used  no  other  lure  than  the  floating 
fly.  When  forty -five  years  old  he 
retired  from  business,  and  since  his 
retirement  (he  is  now  nearly  seventy) 
has  devoted  his  life  mainly  to  the  study 
of  his  favorite  sport.  Therefore,  his 
works  have  become  text-books,  studied 
and  followed  by  all  other  dry-fly  an- 
glers and  writers. 

But  though  twenty-three  years  have 
elapsed  since  his  most  important  work 
appeared,  it  has  produced  but  little 
effect  upon  American  angling  methods, 
and  the  number  of  Americans  who  have 
read  his  books  is  so  comparatively  small 
as  to  be  almost  a  negligible  quantity. 
Among  the  few  who  have  studied  his 
doctrines  and  followed  his  methods  the 
effect  has  been  great;  they  have  be- 

[ix] 


Introduction 

come  fascinated  by  dry-fly  angling, 
and  some  of  them  practice  it  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  methods.  But 
up  to  1911  the  dry-fly  had  aroused 
little  interest  in  this  country,  and  if 
one  of  the  very  few  enthusiasts  men- 
tioned the  subject  to  other  anglers,  he 
was  very  often  met  with  the  question, 
"What  is  the  dry-fly?" 

With  the  exception  of  a  few  magazine 
articles,  there  has  been  practically  no 
American  literature  upon  the  subject. 
And  yet,  it  seems  to  the  author  that 
there  is  a  large  field  for  it.  During  the 
past  year  the  floating  fly  has  been  dis- 
cussed more  and  more  by  our  anglers, 
and  the  author  predicts  that  within  a 
few  years,  in  certain  parts  of  our  coun- 
try at  least,  the  dry-fly  will  become  as 
well  known  and  as  popular  as  the  wet 
fly,  or  sunken  lure,  which  has  been 
recognized  from  our  earliest  angling 
[x] 


Introduction 

days  as  the  one  accepted  method  of 
taking  trout  on  American  streams; 
while  the  further  prediction  is  confi- 
dently advanced  that  at  least  on  the 
best  known,  most  constantly  fished 
streams  of  New  York  and  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  other  similar  waters,  the 
dry-fly  will  rapidly  supplant  the  wet 

fly. 

Mr.  Halford  and  other  English  writ- 
ers have  treated  the  dry-fly  as  a  lure 
for  the  smooth,  placid  chalk  streams 
of  southern  England.  The  writer  will 
endeavor  to  show  that  it  is  equally 
efficient  when  used  on  our  American 
streams,  where  conditions  are  some- 
what different.  Therefore,  while  en- 
dorsing in  general  the  methods  of  Mr. 
Halford,  the  author  will  write  from 
the  stand-point  of  an  American  angler, 
and  will  give  simple  directions,  so  far 
as  he  is  able,  for  using  this  most  fas- 

[xi] 


Introduction 

cinating  lure  upon  American  waters. 
Some  minor  differences  in  methods 
will  appear. 

Owing  to  the  great  scarcity  of  Amer- 
ican dry-fly  literature,  and  a  very  gen- 
eral desire  manifested  by  many  anglers 
of  the  writer's  acquaintance  for  infor- 
mation on  the  subject  of  the  floating 
fly,  early  in  1911  the  author  was  re- 
quested by  the  editor  of  Field  and 
Stream  to  write  a  few  articles  for  be- 
ginners. He  consented,  but  being  un- 
willing to  pose  as  an  expert,  or  even 
as  one  of  the  American  anglers  most 
capable  of  instructing  others,  in  his 
articles  he  explained  that  his  position 
was  that  of  a  beginner  willing  to  lend 
a  helping  hand  to  other  beginners,  to 
guide  them  in  their  first  steps  on  the 
dry-fly  path.  This  is  his  attitude  in 
taking  up  the  present  work.  There  is 
a  constantly  growing  number  of  wet 

[xii] 


Introduction 

fly  fishermen  who  would  like  to  use  the 
dry-fly.  But  how  shall  they  go  about 
it?  It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for 
the  majority  of  anglers  to  find  instruc- 
tors who  take  them  upon  the  streams; 
it  is  next  to  impossible  in  this  coun- 
try to  procure  Mr.  Halford's  early 
works;  at  the  time  these  lines  are 
written  there  is  no  American  book 
upon  the  subject.  It  is  the  hope  of 
the  author,  that  some  anglers  so  situ- 
ated may  acquire  from  this  little  book 
at  least  a  rudimentary  knowledge  of 
this  beautiful  art  that  will  enable  them 
afterward  to  follow  alone  the  delight- 
ful paths  travelled  by  the  dry-fly  en- 
thusiasts, and  by  practice  become  ex- 
perts. 

In  treating  a  subject  so  fully  covered 
by  other  writers — in  this  case,  English 
writers  almost  exclusively — it  would  be 
unfair  to  withhold  appropriate  thanks 

[xiii] 


Introduction 

from  those  who  have  helped  to  make 
this  book  possible.  First,  I  must  speak 
of  the  kindness  of  Field  and  Stream  in 
allowing  me  to  use  certain  parts  of  ar- 
ticles written  for  that  magazine;  due 
acknowledgments  have  already  been 
made  to  Mr.  Halford.  I  should  be 
lacking  in  all  the  ordinary  instincts  of 
courtesy  if  I  did  not  mention  my  friend, 
Mr.  George  M.  L.  LaBranche,  in  the 
author's  opinion  one  of  the  very  best 
of  all-around  American  anglers,  and 
the  most  expert  of  American  dry-fly 
fishermen.  I  have  been  on  the  streams 
with  him,  and  when  watching  his  work 
have  seen  by  far  the  most  skilful  hand- 
ling of  the  fly  that  has  ever  come  under 
my  observation  in  an  experience  of 
thirty-eight  years  as  an  enthusiastic 
fly -fisherman.  His  knowledge  of  dry- 
fly  methods  and  of  the  habits  of  the 
trout  is  profound.  For  about  fifteen 
[xiv] 


Introduction 

years  his  sole  method  of  taking  these 
game  fish  has  been  by  means  of  the 
floating  fly.  For  many  months  we  have 
"talked  dry-fly"  together,  sometimes 
almost  daily.  I  trust,  however,  that  no 
reader  will  assume  that  in  this  book  for 
beginners  I  shall  attempt  to  transcribe 
the  ideas  of  Mr.  LaBranche,  who 
doubtless  will  give  them  to  the  an- 
gling public  himself  at  the  proper 
time.  But  my  frequent  talks  with  him 
have  become  a  part  of  my  angling 
knowledge,  and  there  is  no  way  in 
which  I  can  disassociate  it  in  my  mind 
from  knowledge  gained  in  other  ways. 
Therefore  I  render  thanks  to  him  for 
any  thoughts  advanced  in  this  book 
that  he  may,  as  he  reads  it,  believe  to 
have  been  the  result  of  his  own  obser- 
vations and  investigations,  or  of  our 
various  discussions  of  this  subject. 
The  floating  fly  has  been  looked  upon 

[xv] 


Introduction 

very  generally  in  America  as  an  Eng- 
lish "fad,"  of  value  when  used  on  the 
British  chalk  streams,  but  unsuitable 
for  our  American  waters.  This  I  be- 
lieve to  be  a  very  great  mistake.  To 
my  personal  knowledge,  on  certain 
streams,  and  under  certain  conditions, 
the  dry-fly  angler  is  successful  when 
the  wet  fly  fisherman  fails;  while  in 
many  cases  the  wet  fly  angler  who  be- 
comes expert  with  the  floating  lure 
never  returns  to  the  use  of  the  sunken 

%. 

In  this  work  the  author  will  confine 
himself  as  closely  as  possible  to  his  sub- 
ject, the  floating  fly.  The  beauties  of 
nature,  one  of  the  chief  attractions,  if 
not  the  principal  pleasure,  of  a  day  on 
the  trout  stream,  may  be  well  left  to 
such  poetic  pens  as  those  of  Dr.  Henry 
van  Dyke,  and  other  masters  of  Eng- 
lish literature,  while  the  habits  of  trout 

[xvi] 


Introduction 

and  their  favorite  lurking  places  are 
discussed  in  nearly  every  book  on  an- 
gling.   We  are  now  concerned  with  dry- 
fly  methods  only. 
NEW  YORK,  May,  1912. 


[xviij 


PRACTICAL  DRY-FLY  FISHING 


CHAPTER  I 


English  Dry-Fly  Methods  Modi- 
fied by  American  Ideas  and 
Conditions 


1  \\  THAT  is  a  dry-fly?" 

Y  \  This  question,  asked  by 
a  prominent  sportsman  at 
the  annual  Field  Day  of  the  Camp- 
Fire  Club  of  America,  at  Mr.  Ernest 
Thompson  Seton's  beautiful  estate  at 
Cos  Cob,  Conn.,  in  the  latter  part  of 
June,  1910,  rather  startled  me  for  a 
moment,  as  the  man  who  asked  it  had 
been  a  thorough  out-door  man  all  his 
life;  had  visited  nearly  all  the  haunts 
of  big  game  in  this  country  and  in  Can- 
ada; had  shot  at  different  times  moun- 
tain sheep,  mountain  goat,  moose,  bear, 
antelope,  elk,  caribou,  various  kinds  of 
[3] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

deer,  and  other  varieties  of  wild  ani- 
mals, and  had,  as  a  rule,  carried  at  least 
one  fishing-rod  with  him  on  most  of  his 
trips,  if  not  on  all.  I  knew  that  he 
had  been  successful  in  luring  many 
kinds  of  game-fish,  as  I  had  seen  some 
of  his  records;  and  had  also  examined, 
mounted  in  his  office,  fine  specimens  of 
large  bass,  silver  trout,  ouananiche, 
muscalonge,  and  other  inhabitants  of 
the  streams  and  lakes. 

A  day  or  two  before  this  question 
was  asked  an  article  written  by  the  au- 
thor had  appeared,  the  general  purpose 
of  which  had  been  to  place  the  ques- 
tion seriously  before  American  anglers, 
as  to  why  they  had  not  taken  more  in- 
terest in  this  most  fascinating  branch 
of  angling,  used  so  extensively  for  many 
years  on  the  English  chalk  streams, 
and  recognized  almost  universally  by 
British  anglers  as  the  most  sportsman- 


English  Dry-Fly  Literature 

like,  most  artistic,  and  most  scientific 
of  all  methods  of  taking  trout.  In  the 
article  referred  to  there  had  been  an 
important  error — an  error  of  omission. 
While  believing  that  a  comparatively 
small  number  of  American  anglers  were 
familiar  with  dry-fly  methods,  yet  I 
had  assumed  that  all  would  know  what 
was  meant  when  the  dry-fly  or  float- 
ing fly  was  mentioned.  The  first  im- 
portant contribution  to  dry-fly  litera- 
ture was  made  in  England  in  1851; 
and  from  that  time  until  now  in  that 
country  it  has  been  one  of  the  most 
fully  discussed  methods  of  fishing. 
Some  of  the  British  dry-fly  books  pub- 
lished within  the  past  thirty  years  may 
be  ranked  properly  among  the  great- 
est works  of  angling  literature.  Many 
American  enthusiasts  and  collectors 
possess  at  least  a  few  of  the  most  im- 
portant of  these  works;  and  yet  even 
[5] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

a  slight  investigation  would  show  that 
their  circulation  in  this  country  is  by 
no  means  general.  To  ask  the  aver- 
age English  sportsman  the  question 
propounded  at  the  beginning  of  this 
chapter — "What  is  a  dry-fly?" — would 
be  almost  equivalent  to  asking  an 
American  to  define  base-ball. 

While  it  is  true  that  the  past  year 
or  two  the  floating  fly  has  been  dis- 
cussed more  generally  than  ever  before 
by  American  anglers,  yet  some  of  our 
old-timers — those  who  have  been  fly- 
fishing enthusiasts  for  years — have  as- 
sumed that  Americans  have  been  fa- 
miliar with  dry-fly  methods  since  the 
publication,  many  years  ago,  of  Mr. 
Halford's  earlier  works;  but  a  little 
thought  and  observation,  in  the  author's 
judgment,  will  prove  this  assumption  to 
be  entirely  erroneous,  and  made  possible 
only  by  that  psychological  condition 
[6] 


A  Psychological  Fallacy 

which  often  exists  in  the  minds  of  ex- 
perts in  many  branches  of  learning  that 
makes  them  think  that  merely  because 
they  are  thoroughly  familiar  with  a 
certain  subject  all  others  must  share 
their  knowledge  in  at  least  some  degree. 
The  fallacy  of  the  line  of  reasoning 
that  the  works  of  the  great  English 
expert  must  have  produced  in  this 
country  a  wide-spread  familiarity  with 
the  angling  methods  advocated  by  him 
may  be  discovered  easily  by  one  who 
endeavors  to  procure  in  any  of  our 
leading  cities  a  copy  of  Mr.  Halford's 
most  important  book  from  the  be- 
ginner's stand-point — and  I  think  from 
the  stand-point  of  the  expert  as  well 
— "Dry-Fly  Fishing  in  Theory  and 
Practice,"  published  in  1889.  For  many 
months,  some  years  ago,  the  author 
made  a  search  for  this  work  among 
New  York  dealers  both  in  new  and  in 
[7] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

second-hand  books,  and  failed  to  find 
a  single  copy.  Later,  after  another 
equally  thorough  search  for  the  same 
author's  "Dry -Fly  Entomology,"  the 
writer  was  compelled  to  send  to  Eng- 
land for  it. 

From  his  early  boyhood  the  author 
has  been  an  angling  enthusiast;  as  a 
believer  in  heredity  there  exists  in  his 
mind  no  doubt  that  some  of  his  love 
of  angling  was  transmitted  by  his  par- 
ents and  grandparents,  to  go  no  fur- 
ther back.  This  love  of  his  favorite 
sport  does  not  blossom  like  a  flower 
in  the  happy  days  of  the  fishing  sea- 
son, to  wither  away  with  the  approach 
of  winter.  Many  winter  evenings  are 
spent  in  his  library,  where  he  may  se- 
lect for  his  evening  entertainment  one 
or  more  of  several  hundred  of  the  most 
interesting  angling  books  written  since 
the  days  of  Walton.  He  may  go  even 

[8] 


Angling  Books,  Old  and  New 

farther  back  than  that,  for  once  in  a 
while  he  feels  like  reading  from  a  rare 
old  volume  published  in  1633  a  few 
verses  of  the  "Piscatorie  Eclogs"  by 
Phineas  Fletcher,  or  from  the  Eng- 
lish translation  made  in  1722  of  "Op- 
pian's  Halieutics."  Of  English  works 
on  the  dry-fly  he  has  endeavored  to 
make  a  complete  collection,  and,  unlike 
books  in  many  libraries,  these  do  not 
exist  merely  for  ornament.  They  have 
been  studied  and  their  contents  often 
discussed  with  angling  friends.  After 
having  read  many  of  the  works  of  both 
old  and  modern  angling  writers  one  is 
forced  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
angling  literature  since  the  days  of 
Walton  has  been  one  long  series  of 
repetitions.  Here  and  there  a  book 
shines  out  conspicuous  for  the  original- 
ity of  its  ideas.  Were  this  the  proper 
place  for  such  a  discussion  it  would  be 

[9] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

a  delight  to  mention  these  shining 
lights,  and  endeavor  to  show  wherein 
they  excelled  in  new  ideas  of  value  to 
the  angling  world. 

While  Mr.  Pulman  explained  dry-fly 
methods  in  1851,  yet  when  Mr.  Hal- 
ford  began  to  write,  after  an  exhaust- 
ive study  made  on  the  trout  streams 
themselves,  he  had  practically  a  virgin 
field  before  him.  Therefore  his  early 
books  were  entirely  original  in  concep- 
tion, they  described  clearly  and  fully 
this  important  method  of  angling,  and 
were  contributions  to  angling  literature 
of  great  and  lasting  value.  That  all 
writers  coming  after  him  must  neces- 
sarily go  over  a  certain  part  of  the 
ground  covered  by  him,  however  much 
they  might  differ  with  him  in  minor 
details,  follows  as  a  matter  of  course; 
for  the  entire  theory  of  dry-fly  fishing 
is  founded  on  a  comparatively  few  basic 

[10] 


American  Dry -Fly  Methods 

principles  upon  which  all  experts  agree. 
So  the  general  rules  governing  the  use 
of  the  dry-fly  that  will  be  described  in 
this  work  resemble  closely  those  ad- 
vocated by  Mr.  Halford  and  other 
English  authors;  but  in  all  cases  the 
methods  are  those  used  by  the  writer 
himself,  which  have  been  learned,  first, 
by  his  early  crude  experiments,  made 
before  he  had  read  any  authoritative 
works  on  the  subject;  by  study  of  the 
books  by  English  writers;  by  experi- 
ences on  the  streams  in  the  company 
of  expert  dry-fly  anglers;  and  last,  by 
many  long  discussions  with  several 
skilful  users  of  the  floating  lure.  The 
various  differences  between  the  methods 
that  will  be  advocated  for  our  American 
streams,  and  those  described  by  English 
authorities  for  use  on  their  chalk 
streams,  will  be  pronounced  in  some 
details,  and  such  things  as  the  advo- 
[11] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

cacy  of  "fishing  the  stream"  instead 
of  "stalking  the  fish"  and  "fishing 
the  rise"  only,  may  seem  heretical  to 
what  is  known  as  the  dry-fly  "purist" 
of  England.  In  this  book  we  shall  cast 
our  fly  wherever  our  judgment  tells 
us  that  there  should  be  a  trout.  Mr. 
George  A.  B.  Dewar,  in  his  most  ex- 
cellent work,  "The  Book  of  the  Dry- 
Fly,"  says:  "The  best  short  descrip- 
tion of  the  difference  between  wet  and 
dry-fly  fishing  is  that  which  describes 
the  first  as  'fishing  the  stream'  and  the 
second  as  'fishing  the  rise."  We  can- 
not agree  with  this;  there  is  no  good 
reason  for  not "  fishing  the  stream  "  with 
the  floating  fly.  Then  again  we  shall 
endeavor  to  show  that  while  in  Eng- 
land the  dry-fly  is  considered  the  proper 
method  to  use  only  on  smooth,  placid 
water,  yet  it  is  equally  efficacious  on  our 
swifter  and  more  turbulent  streams. 


Rods,  English  and  American 

In  the  tackle,  especially  the  rods, 
used,  there  will  also  be  some  differ- 
ences in  ideas.  It  would  be  hard  for 
an  American  angler  to  read  carefully 
the  descriptions  of  English  rods  con- 
tained in  even  the  latest  catalogues  of 
some  of  the  largest  British  tacklemakers 
without  imagining  that  he  had  gone 
back  several  generations.*  Some  of 
their  "light"  rods  are  of  a  weight  sel- 
dom if  ever  seen  in  this  country.  In- 
stead of  the  very  beautifully  made 
German  silver  suction  ferules,  with 
which  all  American  anglers  are  familiar, 
they  advertise  various  styles  of  "lock- 
fast" joints  which  would  be  an  eye- 
sore to  any  American  fisherman.  They 
also  have  rods  with  steel  centres,  and 
some  of  them  are  wound  with  steel  or 
bronze  wire  on  the  outside.  A  well- 

*  Many  of  the  best  anglers  of  England  are  now 
using  our  light  American  rods. 

[13] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

known  dry-fly  "purist"  and  angling 
writer,  in  a  book  published  as  late  as 
1908,  advocates  the  use  of  a  rod  eleven 
feet  long,  weighing  eleven  ounces — one 
that  "can  easily  be  wielded  single- 
handed."  What  strength  must  he 
possess  who  can  wield  such  a  weapon 
easily ! 

Some  views,  entirely  contrary  to  those 
held  by  English  authorities,  will  be  ex- 
pressed by  the  author,  which  he  would 
be  glad  to  designate  "the  American 
methods,"  if  we  had  a  number  of  dry- 
fly  anglers  sufficiently  large  to  merit  the 
somewhat  ambitious  title,  "the  Ameri- 
can school." 

Incidentally,  some  of  these  differences 
of  opinion  may  meet  with  the  severe 
criticisms  of  a  few  of  the  old-timers 
among  American  anglers,  who  read 
Halford  in  1889,  and  who  have  regarded 
his  book  as  almost  sacred  ever  since. 

[14] 


Experts  Not  Infallible 

In  dry-fly  discussions  it  is  sometimes 
customary  for  them  to  quote  the  ideas 
to  which  Mr.  Halford  gave  utterance 
twenty-three  years  ago,  and  that  is  the 
end  of  the  argument;  the  case  has  been 
decided  by  the  court  of  last  appeal. 
We  admire  Mr.  Halford,  but  we  would 
not  thrust  upon  him  an  infallibility 
which  we  feel  very  sure  he  would  have 
no  desire  to  claim,  especially  if  he  were 
to  give  advice  in  regard  to  fishing 
American  streams;  while  it  is  at  least 
possible  that  in  the  years  that  have 
elapsed  since  1889  he  may  have  changed 
or  modified  some  of  the  views  he  then 
expressed.  As  late  as  February  25, 
1912,  Mr.  Halford  said,  in  a  letter  to 
the  author  of  this  book:  "I  note  what 
you  say  about  the  absence  of  rises  on 
your  streams.  I  have  had  similar  ex- 
periences in  England,  and  have,  like 
you,  found  it  profitable  to  float  a  fly 

[15] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

over  a  likely  spot,  especially  if  a  good 
fish  is  seen  in  good  position  and  likely 
to  feed." 


[16] 


CHAPTER  II 


"Fishing  the  Rise"  and  "Fishing 
the  Stream,"  and  a  Word 
About  the  English  "Purist" 


THE  theory  of  dry-fly  fishing  is 
founded  on  the  use  of  an  arti- 
ficial fly  that  is  an  exact  imita- 
tion* of  a  natural  insect,  in  size,  shape, 
and  color,  and  so  made  that  it  will  not 
easily  sink;  it  is  cast  up-stream  and  al- 

*  Several  times  in  this  book  I  shall  speak  of  flies 
tied  in  exact  imitation  of  natural  insects.  It  will 
be  readily  understood,  especially  if  one  looks  at 
some  of  our  common  insects  through  a  microscope, 
and  sees  with  what  wonderful  delicacy  they  are 
formed,  how  impossible  it  would  be  to  fashion  with 
feathers,  silks,  and  other  materials  at  the  command 
of  the  fly-maker,  exact  reproductions,  from  a  tech- 
nical and  scientific  stand-point,  of  live  insects.  The 
author  means  by  "exact  imitations"  artificial  flies 
that  have  been  made  to  match  in  size,  shape,  color, 
and  other  details  the  original  insect  with  all  possible 
fidelity. 

[17] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

lowed  to  float  down  on  the  surface  of 
the  water  with  no  other  motion  than 
that  imparted  by  the  current. 

However  much  anglers  may  disagree 
about  many  theories,  yet  on  these 
points  all  writers,  all  experts,  and  all 
users  of  the  floating  fly  are  apparently 
in  accord.  They  all  accept  the  exact 
imitation  theory — a  bone  of  conten- 
tion among  wet  fly  anglers  for  many 
years.  There  is  no  divergence  of  opin- 
ion in  regard  to  fishing  up-stream — an- 
other topic  of  discussion  among  the 
wet  fly  men  that  probably  will  never 
be  settled  to  the  satisfaction  of  all. 
And  the  proposition  that  the  dry-fly 
must  float  down  with  the  current,  with 
no  other  motion  whatever,  is  univer- 
sally agreed  to.  So  in  many  ways  the 
dry-fly  fishermen  form  a  happy  and 
harmonious  family,  and  the  knotty 
problems  that  are  forever  coming  up 
[18] 


Ways  of  the  Dry-Fly  Purist 

to  cause  disagreements  among  the 
users  of  the  sunken  fly  are  reduced  to 
a  minimum. 

And  still  harmony  does  not  always 
reign  supreme  among  members  of  the 
English  floating  fly  fraternity.  The 
dry-fly  "  purist,"  as  he  is  known,  casts 
his  fly  usually  only  when  he  sees  a  trout 
rising;  he  "stalks"  the  fish;  if  he  sees 
a  rise,  he  goes  within  casting  distance 
of  the  spot,  carefully  places  his  fly  so 
that  it  falls  exactly  where  the  trout 
had  risen,  or  just  above  it,  that  the 
fly  may  float  down  over  the  fish.  If 
he  does  not  get  a  rise,  it  is  not  unusual 
for  him  to  try  a  fly  of  a  different  pat- 
tern; if  he  finally  gives  up  in  his  at- 
tempt to  catch  this  particular  trout, 
he  looks  for  another  rising  fish,  but 
does  not  make  another  cast  until  he 
again  sees  a  rise.  If  no  rises  occur 
within  his  vision  during  the  day,  he 
[19] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

does  not  wet  his  line.  Some  of  this 
cult  carry  field-glasses  with  which  they 
scan  the  surface  of  the  stream. 

These  methods  undoubtedly  mark  a 
very  high  type  of  sportsmanship  in  an- 
gling; perhaps  I  should  be  somewhat 
tempted  to  say  the  highest  type  of 
sportsmanship  if  I  did  not  have  reason 
to  believe  that  our  method  of  taking  a 
fish  that  has  not  already  indicated  its 
exact  location  to  the  fisherman  requires 
at  least  as  much  skill  on  the  part  of 
the  angler  as  the  purist's  method  of 
fishing  the  rise  only,  where  the  exact 
whereabouts  of  the  fish  is  known.  It 
seems  to  me  that  when  an  angler  sees 
a  rising  fish,  within  casting  distance, 
the  battle  is  at  least  half  won. 

An  American,  with  a  mind  capable 
of  seeing  humorous  features  in  almost 
all  things,  and  also  at  times  not  be- 
yond the  temptation  of  indulging  in 

[20] 


Gloom  by  the  Riverside 

ridicule,  may  easily  see  an  opening  for 
poking  fun  at  the  disappointed  purist, 
as  he  returns  at  evening  without  once 
having  cast  a  fly  during  the  day.  In 
fact,  he  does  not  escape  ridicule  in 
England;  he  has  been  the  victim  of 
much  sarcasm,  even  from  some  mem- 
bers of  the  British  angling  fraternity. 
Mr.  G.  E.  M.  Skues,  a  bright  and  at 
times  sarcastic  English  writer,  says, 
in  his  "Minor  Tactics  of  the  Chalk 
Stream":  "I  know  of  no  sight  more 
gloomy  than  that  of  a  golfer  pain- 
fully tramping  from  shot  to  shot.  But 
perhaps  the  next  gloomiest  sight  is  the 
angler,  who,  with  perhaps  but  a  single 
day  at  his  disposal,  lounges  hour  by 
hour  by  the  side  of  the  main  river, 
waiting  with  such  patience  as  he  can 
muster  for  the  rise  which  comes  not." 
The  strict  purist,  in  turn,  has  retorted 
to  those  who  are  inclined  to  make  of 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

him  a  ridiculous  figure,  by  calling  all 
who  do  not  adopt  his  methods  "poach- 
ers." It  would  not  be  fair,  however, 
to  the  British  angler — men  of  the  Hal- 
ford  type — to  convey  an  impression 
that  ill-natured  criticism  is  common 
among  the  British  sportsmen.  I  have 
read  much  of  their  literature,  bearing 
on  all  sides  of  the  question,  and  have 
found  a  general  inclination  to  be  tol- 
erant of  each  other's  opinions,  and 
most  courteous  in  their  arguments. 
Their  ideas  of  sportsmanship  are  high, 
a  condition  that  I  believe  is  very  gen- 
eral among  dry-fly  anglers  everywhere. 
The  fascination  of  the  game  seems  to 
be  the  attraction  of  this  method  of 
fishing,  and  not  the  "heavy  creel"  at 
the  end  of  the  day. 

The  purist's  method  of  angling, 
sportsmanlike  and  praiseworthy  though 
it  may  be,  is  not,  I  think,  the  style  of 

[22] 


When  Patience  Has  Its  Limits 

dry-fly  fishing  that  would  generally  ap- 
peal to  American  anglers,  even  though 
conditions  on  our  streams  made  it  at 
all  times  possible.  It  is  difficult  to 
imagine  an  American  fly-fisherman  so 
patient  that  he  would  spend  a  day  on 
the  stream  without  casting  a  fly.  In 
the  first  place,  he  enjoys  the  practice 
of  casting,  whether  the  fish  rise  or  not. 
Then  again,  abundant  experience  has 
taught  our  American  anglers  that  on 
some  of  our  near-by  streams  they  may 
often  pass  an  entire  day  without  see- 
ing a  trout  rise  at  a  natural  insect. 
So  the  dry-fly  angler  of  this  country 
begins  casting  when  he  reaches  the 
stream,  more  or  less  "for  general  re- 
sults," as  the  Englishman  might  call 
it;  but  the  work  of  an  American  ex- 
pert is  not  always  a  bungling  perform- 
ance, and  frequently  there  is  very  little 
"hit-or-miss"  about  it.  He  generally 

[23] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

shows  a  keen  knowledge  of  the  habits 
of  the  trout,  and  where  they  should 
be  lying  in  wait  for  their  food.  His 
methods  may  differ  from  those  of  the 
English  purist  in  that  instead  of 
casting  at  the  rise,  he  casts  at  those 
places  where  experience  has  taught 
him  that  the  trout  hide,  live,  and  seek 
their  food.  There  is  nothing  more 
skilful  to  be  seen  on  a  stream  than  the 
casting  of  a  dry-fly  expert.  It  is  sel- 
dom except  when  watching  them  that 
I  have  seen  flies  ''light  like  thistle- 
down"; or  that  I  have  been  deceived 
for  a  moment  into  thinking  that  an 
artificial  fly  was  a  natural  insect  as  it 
fluttered  through  the  air  to  the  surface 
of  the  water. 

But  no  American  fisherman  familiar 
with  English  angling  literature  can 
help  feeling  admiration  for  the  Eng- 
lish dry-fly  enthusiast's  deep  study  of 

[9A] 


Angling  Entomologists 

his  favorite  sport.  The  English  ex- 
pert is  an  entomologist  and  knows  upon 
what  insects  the  trout  feed,  and  as  a 
rule  finds  out  what  insect  they  are  tak- 
ing on  that  particular  day  and  hour 
that  he  is  on  the  stream;  and  from  his 
fly  box  he  selects  a  fly  tied  in  exact  im- 
itation in  form,  size,  and  color  of  the 
living  insect.  How  small  a  part  has  a 
knowledge  of  entomology  played,  as  a 
general  rule,  in  American  trout  fishing! 
The  dry-fly  angler  endeavors  to  pre- 
sent the  fly  to  the  fish  in  the  most  nat- 
ural manner  possible.  He  knows  that 
weak,  flying  insects  cannot  swim  against 
a  current  with  the  speed  of  a  torpedo 
boat,  and  that  they  do  not  move  about 
under  the  surface  by  starts  and  jerks. 
He  reasons  that  if  a  winged  insect  is  on 
the  surface  of  a  running  stream  it  can 
have  but  one  action;  that  is  the  mo- 
tion imparted  by  the  current.  In  other 

[25] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

words,  the  fly  simply  floats  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  water;  and  so  his  artificial 
lures  came  to  be  known  as  dry-flies  or 
floating  flies. 

And  from  this  comes  the  whole  the- 
ory of  dry-fly  fishing,  as  described 
briefly  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter: 
The  exact  imitation,  and  the  fly  that 
floats  down-stream  with  a  natural  mo- 
tion. If  any  movement  is  given  to  the 
fly,  other  than  that  imparted  by  the 
current,  the  dry-fly  angler's  theory  is 
that  the  trout  will  look  upon  it  as  an 
entirely  unnatural  proceeding,  some- 
thing that  it  has  discovered  that  live 
flies  will  not  do,  and  that  therefore  the 
lure  will  have  no  attraction  whatever 
for  the  fish. 


[26] 


CHAPTER  III 


Largely  Statistical,  Describing 
Rods,  Lines,  Leaders,  Flies, 
and  Other  Tackle 


A"  to  the  equipment  necessary  for 
this  method  of  fishing,  the  au- 
thor will  assume  that  the  reader 
is  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  proper 
clothing  to  wear,  the  several  styles  of 
wading  trousers  or  wading  stockings, 
landing-net,  reel,  creel,  and  various 
things  of  minor  importance,  and  in 
discussing  this  part  of  the  subject  will 
confine  himself  principally  to  rods, 
lines,  leaders,  and  flies. 

The  rod  is  generally  and  properly 
regarded  as  the  most  important  part 
of  a  fisherman's  outfit.  There  is  noth- 
ing that  can  equal  a  good  rod  of  split- 

[27] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

bamboo.  For  dry-fly  fishing  the  rod 
should  have  plenty  of  what  is  com- 
monly known  as  "backbone";  that  is, 
it  should  not  be  weak  or  "whippy." 
It  may  be  nine,  nine  and  one-half,  or 
ten  feet  long,  though,  perhaps,  the  ten- 
foot  rod  is  the  favorite.*  It  is  impos- 
sible to  describe  a  rod  adequately 
by  merely  giving  weight  for  length, 
for  the  very  simple  reason  that  one 
nine-foot  rod  of  six  ounces  may  have 
much  less  power,  backbone,  and  resili- 
ency, than  another  of  the  same  length 
weighing  four  and  one-half  ounces. 
What  are  known  as  four-ounce  or  five- 
ounce  tournament  rods,  weighing  four 
and  three-quarter  ounces  and  five  and 
one-half  or  five  and  three-quarter 
ounces,  respectively  (an  allowance  of 

*The  favorite  of  all  rods  used  by  the  author  is 
nine  feet  long  and  weighs,  with  metal  reel  seat,  four 
and  three-quarter  ounces. 

[28] 


Weights  of  Rods  and  Lines 

three-quarters  of  an  ounce  is  always 
made  for  a  metal  reel  seat  in  fly -casting 
tournaments),  are  in  my  opinion  ideal 
rods  for  the  purpose.  Not,  however, 
that  tournament  rods  are  at  all  nec- 
essary. The  author  has  several  rods 
that  were  not  built  for  tournament 
casting,  but  which  are  ideal  for  dry-fly 
fishing — one  in  particular,  nine  and  one- 
half  feet  long,  weighing  five  and  one- 
half  ounces,  full  of  backbone,  snap,  and 
ginger,  and  easily  capable  of  handling 
an  English  water-proofed  D  tapered 
line,  a  line  much  heavier  than  lines 
usually  used  in  fishing.  There  are 
several  reasons  why  a  strong,  power- 
ful rod  should  be  chosen  for  dry-fly 
work.  A  heavier  line  is  used  than  is 
customary  in  ordinary  fly-fishing,  for 
reasons  that  will  be  explained;  the  rod 
is  called  upon  to  do  much  more  work, 
for  in  using  the  dry-fly,  after  each  cast 
[29] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

there  must  be  several  casts  in  the  air, 
or  "false  casts,"  for  the  purpose  of  dry- 
ing the  fly,  and  lengthening  the  line  be- 
fore the  insect  again  touches  the  water. 
Therefore  the  rod  should  be  powerful, 
though  not  necessarily  heavy;  in  fact, 
unless  one  likes  to  have  a  tired  wrist 
at  the  end  of  the  day,  an  unnecessar- 
ily heavy  rod  is  anything  but  desirable. 
Incidentally  it  may  be  stated  that  it  is 
a  good  plan  always  to  select  a  reel  of 
the  exact  weight  to  balance  the  rod 
perfectly,  so  that  the  rod  does  not  feel 
top-heavy. 

Expert  anglers  will  advise  without 
qualification  an  English  water-proofed 
silk  line  for  dry-fly  fishing.  It  may, 
perhaps,  hurt  an  American's  pride  to 
feel  compelled  to  admit  that  while 
nothing  can  equal  the  best  American- 
made  split-bamboo  rods,  there  has 
not  as  yet  been  produced  a  fly-line  in 

[30] 


Lines  Dressed  in  a  Vacuum 

this  country  that  can  compare  with  the 
best  English  product.  These  lines  are 
expensive,  but  well  worth  the  money 
they  cost.  Some  anglers  who  would 
like  to  possess  an  English  line  feel 
that  they  cannot  afford  it;  yet  they 
can  afford  to  go  on  expensive  fishing 
trips.  My  advice  would  be  to  get  the 
line,  and  to  pay  for  it,  if  necessary,  by 
reducing  the  duration  of  a  fishing  trip 
by  one  day.  The  line,  having  thus 
been  paid  for,  will  furnish  pleasure  for 
many  other  trips  to  come. 

The  English  fly-lines  are  water- 
proofed in  a  vacuum,  so  that  the 
"dressing"  may  permeate  every  fibre 
of  the  silk.  Then  they  are  rubbed 
down,  and  afterward  dressed  again. 
Just  how  many  times  this  operation 
is  repeated  depends  upon  the  make 
and  quality  of  the  line.  The  completed 
product  is  a  line  of  great  beauty, 

[31] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

smoothness,  and  flexibility,  and  the  an- 
gler who  has  not  used  one  has  a  fresh 
pleasure  before  him  in  fly-casting.  As 
to  the  size  of  the  line,  the  same  thing 
that  was  said  of  "weight  for  length" 
in  rods  may  be  said  of  lines,  changing 
the  expression  to  "weight  for  size." 
In  a  line  it  is  the  weight  that  counts; 
and  lines  of  different  makes  designated 
by  the  letters  D,  E,  or  F,  vary  both  in 
size  and  in  weight.  It  is  probable, 
however,  that  the  beginner  in  dry-fly 
fishing  will  be  perfectly  safe  if  he  buys 
an  E  line,  though  I  often  use  with  much 
pleasure  the  heavier  D  line.  Some  may 
look  upon  a  trout  line  of  this  size  as 
suitable  only  for  tournament  work, 
and  be  inclined  to  criticise  its  use  on 
the  streams.  They  may  be  right. 
But  if  the  reader  will  bear  with  me  for 
a  moment  I  think  that  the  proposition 
will  seem  more  reasonable  to  him:  In 

[32] 


The  Line  Must  Fit  the  Rod 

the  first  place,  the  author  does  not  be- 
lieve in  "far-off"  casting,  excepting 
when  absolutely  necessary.  The  D  line 
tapers  gradually  for  from  fifteen  to 
eighteen  feet  from  its  largest  diameter 
to  a  very  fine  diameter  at  the  end;  to 
this  is  attached  a  nine-foot  leader,  so 
that  before  one  begins  to  use  the  thick- 
est length  of  the  line  he  already  has 
from  twenty-four  to  twenty-seven  feet 
of  finer  line  and  leader  out.  Then  on  his 
long  casts  he  begins  to  avail  himself 
of  the  driving  power  of  the  heaviest 
part  of  the  line.  Perhaps,  however, 
it  will  be  more  sensible  for  the  beginner 
to  buy  an  E  line,  but  by  all  means  it 
should  be  tapered.  And  remember  that 
the  line  must  be  neither  too  heavy  nor 
too  light  for  the  rod.  It  should,  in 
other  words,  "fit"  the  rod  exactly. 

Next  in  importance  comes  the  leader. 
There    are    various    opinions    as    to 

[33] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

whether  this  necessary  article  should 
be  tapered  or  not,  and  also  as  to  the 
exact  length  that  should  be  used.  The 
beginner  may  study  all  these  things 
out  on  the  streams,  and  be  guided  both 
by  his  own  experience  and  that  of  ex- 
pert anglers  whom  he  may  meet.  It 
is  safe  to  say  that  a  large  majority  of 
dry-fly  anglers  both  in  England  and 
America  use  a  tapered  leader  nine  feet 
long,  and  dry-fly  leaders  are  commonly 
listed  in  this  way  in  nearly  all  cata- 
logues. It  is  true  that  a  long,  light 
leader  is  difficult  to  manage  against  a 
strong  head- wind,  and  in  these  weather 
conditions  a  leader  of  six  feet  might 
be  better.  The  conventional  dry-fly 
leader  is  tapered,  and  is  rather  coarse 
at  the  line  end,  tapering  down  from 
fine  drawn  gut  to  the  finest  undrawn  at 
the  end  to  which  the  fly  is  tied.  Per- 
sonally I  prefer  the  fine  undrawn  gut 

[34] 


English  and  American  Flies 

ends  or  points  to  the  drawn  gut  for 
general  fishing. 

It  is  generally  a  pleasure  to  an  Amer- 
ican writer  to  do  all  American  products 
full  justice,  and  not  to  advocate  the 
purchase  abroad  of  things  that  are 
made  in  this  country  of  equal  quality. 
I  have  unhesitatingly  advised  my 
readers  to  buy  English  lines,  but  I 
am  in  much  doubt  as  to  what  to  say 
about  the  purchase  of  flies.  Of  course, 
England  is  the  home — the  birthplace, 
so  to  speak — of  the  floating  fly,  and 
its  use  in  this  country  has  been  so  lim- 
ited that  American  fly-tiers  have  not 
had  sufficient  encouragement  to  make 
efforts  to  put  upon  the  market  a  prod- 
uct that  can  compete  in  quality  with 
the  English  floating  insect,  or  to  at- 
tempt to  tie  flies  in  imitation  of  in- 
sects found  upon  American  streams. 
So  personally,  I  think  that  our  most 

[35J 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

expert  dry-fly  fishermen  generally  use 
flies  of  English  make.  There  has  been 
much  more  interest  in  the  dry-fly  in 
this  country  recently  than  ever  before, 
and  some  of  our  dealers  have  imported 
English  dry-flies  of  the  best  quality, 
and  have  put  them  on  the  market  at 
reasonable  prices.  They  should  be 
encouraged  in  this  good  work.  As  to 
the  flies  themselves,  it  has  already  been 
made  plain  that  they  are  "tied  dry"; 
that  is,  so  that  they  will  float.  It  is 
therefore  necessary  that  the  bodies  of 
dry-flies  shall  be  made  of  materials  that 
will  float  readily,  and  that  will  not  be- 
come water-soaked  easily.  There  are 
certain  objections  to  the  use  of  silk,  as 
most  of  it  changes  color  when  wet,  and 
the  "dubbing"  commonly  used  for  the 
bodies  of  wet  flies,  becomes  quickly 
water-soaked  and  the  fly  consequently 
loses  its  buoyancy;  so  that  now  Mr. 

[36] 


Fly-Dressing  Materials 

Halford  recommends  quill,  horse-hair, 
and  Rofia  grass  for  dressing  the  bodies 
of  floating  flies.  This,  however,  is  a  sub- 
ject that  properly  belongs  to  the  fly- 
dressers'  art  and  need  not  be  enlarged 
upon  in  a  book  of  instruction  in  the  use 
of  the  fly. 


[37] 


CHAPTER  IV 


Showing  that  Americans  May  Use 
the  Dry-Fly,  Though  There  is  No 
American  Fly-Fisher's  Ento- 
mology 


WHILE  perhaps  American  an- 
glers as  a  rule  have  suffered 
no  particular  inconvenience 
from  being  compelled  to  use  English 
patterns,  yet  who  would  not  feel  much 
more  pride  if  Americans  were  able  to 
procure  flies  of  the  highest  class  tied 
in  imitation  of  the  insects  found  upon 
our  own  streams?  But  there  is  one  ob- 
stacle that  seems  to  make  this  impos- 
sible at  present.  In  1836,  seventy-six 
years  ago,  Mr.  Alfred  Ronalds  gave  to 
the  English  angling  world  a  very  com- 
plete entomology,  containing  the  names 

[38] 


Nature  Imitated  Accurately 

of  forty -six  flies  commonly  found  upon 
the  English  streams,  which  formed  a 
large  part  of  the  insect  food  of  their 
trout.  Very  careful  drawings  of  these 
insects  were  made,  and  in  the  book 
the  plates  were  hand-colored  to  re- 
semble the  natural  fly  in  every  partic- 
ular. Side  by  side  with  the  natural 
insects  were  plates  of  the  imitation 
flies,  also  hand-colored.  In  1886,  Mr. 
Halford  published  one  of  his  celebrated 
works,  "Floating  Flies  and  How  to 
Dress  Them,"  and  in  this  book  were 
shown  ninety  artificial  patterns,  all 
dressed  from  the  natural  insects,  and 
in  the  de  luxe  edition  hand-colored. 
In  1897,  Mr.  Halford  gave  to  anglers 
another  work,  his  "Dry-Fly  Ento- 
mology," containing  one  hundred  pat- 
terns. The  great  accuracy  aimed  at 
by  Mr.  Halford  in  all  his  entomological 
studies  may  be  understood  when  we 

[39] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

learn  that  he  in  no  case  was  satisfied 
that  he  had  the  correct  type  of  any  in- 
sect until  he  had  secured  at  least  two 
hundred  specimens  of  that  insect,  all 
taken  from  the  water  and  none  from 
the  air.  In  America  it  is  doubtless 
true  that  many  anglers  have  examined 
carefully  various  insects  they  have 
seen  on  our  trout  streams,  but  no  one 
apparently  has  carried  his  investiga- 
tions so  far  as  to  make  them  of  prac- 
tical value  to  a  large  number  of  his 
fellow  anglers. 

But  still  this  situation  does  not  make 
the  successful  use  of  the  dry-fly  on 
American  streams  impossible  or  even 
inadvisable.  The  favorite  English- 
made  floating  flies  are  imitations  of 
the  Ephemeridse,  and  there  seems  to 
be  little  doubt  that  many  of  the  duns 
found  upon  the  streams  of  England  also 
exist  on  American  waters.  Whether 

[40] 


A  Word  About  Size  of  Fly 

English  dry-flies,  tied  to  resemble  Eng- 
lish insects,  imitate  exactly  in  all  points 
similar  insects  common  to  American 
streams  is  a  mooted  question,  owing 
to  the  fact  that  we  have  no  American 
authority;  but  there  is  little  question 
that  they  resemble  them  closely  in  im- 
portant particulars,  such  as  size,  shape, 
and  general  color.  In  shape,  the  duns 
are  precisely  similar.  One  of  the  most 
important  things  is  action,  by  which 
is  meant  that  a  dry-fly  shall  float  down 
exactly  as  a  living  insect  would  float, 
and  that  depends  entirely  upon  the 
skill  of  the  angler  and  not  upon  the 
make  of  the  fly. 

It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  mention  that 
the  majority  of  American  dry-fly  an- 
glers have  a  belief  that  the  use  of  a 
slightly  larger  fly  than  is  used  in  Eng- 
land, tied  on  a  larger  hook,  is  advisable 
on  our  streams.  Mr.  Dewar,  the  Eng- 

[41] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

lish  writer,  advises  the  use  of  as  large 
a  hook  as  possible  even  on  English 
streams,  meaning,  of  course,  a  hook 
that  is  not  too  large  to  prevent  at 
least  an  approximate  resemblance  to 
the  live  insect.  A  larger  hook  is  cer- 
tainly more  sure  to  engage  itself  in 
the  fish's  mouth  than  one  of  the  little 
000,  00,  or  0  hooks  so  commonly  used 
by  British  anglers.  It  is  held  by  Mr. 
LaBranche  and  other  American  anglers 
that  it  is  much  more  difficult  to  keep 
very  small  flies  in  a  "  floating  condition  " 
than  flies  somewhat  larger.  In  Eng- 
land, where  they  fish  the  rise  almost 
exclusively,  the  fly  is  on  the  water 
but  infrequently,  and  has  plenty  of 
opportunity  to  dry.  But  we  fish  "  likely 
spots,"  and  the  fly  is  floating  a  large 
part  of  the  time.  Hence  the  difficulty 
of  keeping  the  small  fly  long  in  a  suffi- 
ciently dry  condition  to  float  properly. 

[421 


An  Aid  to  Floatability 

To  increase  the  floating  power  of  the 
dry-fly  it  is  customary  to  "paraffin" 
the  flies  from  time  to  time.  For  this 
purpose  it  is  well  for  the  angler  to  carry 
with  him  on  the  stream  a  small  bottle 
of  paraffin  oil,  or  one  of  the  several 
preparations  made  especially  for  this 
purpose.  It  will  also  pay  to  buy  a 
small  "dry-fly  oiler"  made  to  hold  this 
oil  when  on  the  streams.  After  tying 
the  fly  to  the  leader,  the  angler  should 
put  a  small  quantity  of  oil  on  the 
hackles  and  on  the  body  of  the  fly.  A 
rag,  an  old  handkerchief,  or  a  folded 
piece  of  blotting-paper,  is  used  with 
which  to  "squeeze  out"  the  superflu- 
ous oil. 

The  majority  of  dry-fly  anglers  also 
own  a  small  tin  of  deer  fat.  With  it 
they  grease  their  line  occasionally,  or 
at  least  from  ten  to  thirty  feet  of  it. 
The  deer  fat  is  best  put  on  the  line 

[43] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

with  the  thumb  and  forefinger  of  one 
hand,  and  the  line  is  then  carefully 
rubbed  down  with  a  soft  rag  to  re- 
move the  superfluous  fat.  The  pur- 
pose of  using  deer  fat  is  to  make  the 
line  float  more  readily.  It  also  pre- 
serves the  line  and  keeps  it  soft  and 
flexible. 

In  the  series  of  magazine  articles  al- 
ready referred  to,  entitled  "Practical 
Dry-Fly  Fishing  for  Beginners,"  the 
author  explained  just  what  he  had  in 
mind  when  he  used  the  word  "be- 
ginner"; and  as  this  book  is  intended 
merely  to  carry  out  the  idea  that  in- 
spired his  first  writings  on  the  subject, 
namely,  to  lend  a  helping  hand  to  the 
dry-fly  beginner,  it  may  not  be  out  of 
place  to  close  this  chapter  with  a  quo- 
tation from  that  article: 

While  it  has  been  made  plain  that  these  words 
are  written  for  the  beginner  only,  yet  I  hope  that 

[44] 


A  Dry -Fly  Beginner  Defined 

the  exact  type  of  beginner  that  I  have  in  mind  will 
be  equally  well  understood;  he  is  not  the  tyro  who 
has  never  as  yet  had  the  pleasure  of  using  a  fly-rod, 
or  the  man  who  has  no  knowledge  of  trout  streams 
or  the  habits  of  trout.  I  assume  that  those  who 
have  asked  me  to  write  these  instructions  are  al- 
ready good  anglers.  It  is  my  hope  that  this  article 
will  be  of  assistance  to  those  who  are  fly-fishermen, 
but  who  have  not  as  yet  tasted  the  pleasures  of 
luring  the  trout  with  the  dry-fly.  It  is  not  difficult 
to  believe  that  the  step  from  the  expert  wet  fly  fish- 
erman to  the  dry-fly  expert  is  a  comparatively  short 
one,  and  easily  accomplished  by  one  willing  to  de- 
vote some  thought  to  the  subject,  and  some  time  to 
practising  on  the  streams.  In  this  way  it  is  prob- 
able that  all  our  best  American  dry-fly  anglers  have 
become  experts.  They  have  first  been  expert  wet 
fly  anglers;  then  their  attention  has  been  drawn  to 
the  dry-fly;  they  have  received  a  few  "  points"  from 
friends — enough  to  start  with;  they  have  practised 
on  the  streams,  perhaps  somewhat  crudely  at  first; 
they  have  read  much  of  the  very  fine  literature 
written  in  England  upon  the  subject;  they  have 
been  quick  to  understand  the  methods  used  by  our 
English  cousins;  they  have  adapted  and  changed 
the  English  ideas  to  meet  the  conditions  upon  our 
streams,  and  in  a  comparatively  short  time  they  have 
become  successively  our  pioneers  and  our  experts 
in  dry-fly  angling. 


[45] 


CHAPTER  V 


Up-Stream  Fishing,  Methods  of 
Casting,  and  Some  Condensed 
Rules  for  Using  the  Floating  Fly 


IT  has  already  been  noticed,  possi- 
bly, what  a  part  naturalness  plays 
in  dry-fly  fishing;  we  have  learned 
that  the  fly  is  an  exact  imitation  of  the 
natural  insect;  it  must  be  presented 
to  the  trout  in  an  absolutely  natural 
manner,  and  when  the  fly  is  on  the 
water  it  must  have  a  natural  motion. 
We  do  not  merely  hope  that  by  some 
lucky  chance  the  trout  may  take  the 
feathered  lure  for  "something  good  to 
eat"  without  knowing  exactly  the  nat- 
ure of  the  food  presented;  the  trout 
must  see  that  the  fly  is  an  insect  upon 
which  it  has  fed  many  times  before; 

[46] 


By  All  Means,  Fish  Up-Stream 

it  must  light  on  the  water  as  it  has 
seen  thousands  of  other  insects  light; 
it  must  float  down  the  stream  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  manner  that  it  has 
been  accustomed  all  its  life  to  see  other 
insects  float  with  the  current.  In 
other  words,  the  very  naturalness  of 
the  entire  game  must  deceive  the  trout 
completely. 

The  dry-fly  angler  must  fish  up- 
stream, or  up  and  across  stream,  and 
the  beginner  will  make  no  mistake  in 
following  this  advice  blindly  without 
being  influenced  by  the  arguments  pro 
and  con  by  some  wet  fly  fishermen  as 
to  whether  it  is  better  to  fish  up-stream 
or  down.  True  it  is  not  always  de- 
sirable that  you  cast  directly  ahead  of 
you  on  the  stream,  so  that  you  may 
risk  "lining  the  fish"  as  it  lies  with  its 
head  up-stream.  By  this  is  meant  cast- 
ing the  fly  above  the  trout  so  that  the 

[47] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

leader  falls  directly  over  its  head  and 
body,  thus  placing  the  fly,  the  head 
and  tail  of  the  fish,  and  the  angler  in  a 
straight  line.  Usually  trout  are  "gut 
shy."  It  is  obvious  that  the  fish  may 
get  a  good  view  of  the  leader  before  it 
sees  the  fly,  or  that  it  may  see  the  fly 
and  leader  simultaneously. 

Before  taking  our  first  trip  to  the 
stream,  even  at  the  risk  of  repetition, 
it  may  be  well  to  recapitulate  and 
bring  together  the  principal  rules  of 
dry-fly  fishing  that  have  been  already 
mentioned  in  a  general  way.  (1)  Use 
but  one  fly  and  that  an  imitation  of  a 
natural  insect,  and  a  fly  that  floats. 
(2)  Cast  this  fly  up-stream,  at  or  slightly 
above  a  spot  where  you  know  there  is 
a  trout  from  having  seen  it  rise,  or  a 
spot  where  your  "fish  sense"  tells  you 
that  a  trout  may  be.  (3)  Let  the  fly 
float  down  with  no  motion  whatever 

[48] 


Some  Rules,  Briefly  Stated 

except  that  naturally  imparted  by  the 
current.  (4)  After  the  fly  has  floated 
well  below  the  place  where  you  think 
the  trout  may  lie,  lift  it  very  gently 
from  the  water  and  prepare  for  the 
next  cast.  (5)  Make  at  least  three  or 
four  false  casts  in  the  air,  both  to  dry 
your  fly  and  to  lengthen  your  line,  and 
do  not  let  the  fly  touch  the  water  again 
until  you  see  that  it  will  strike  the 
exact  spot  that  you  have  picked  out 
for  it  to  land.  (6)  If  you  "bungle" 
your  cast — that  is,  if  the  fly  does  not 
light  on  the  right  spot,  or  if  it  does 
not  light  properly,  with  wings  nicely 
"cocked"  in  the  air,  do  not  imme- 
diately remove  the  fly  from  the  water 
with  a  jerk;  let  it  float  down  as  if  you 
had  made  the  best  cast  possible,  and 
then  lift  it  out  gently  as  before.  By 
following  this  course  you  will  lessen 
much  the  chances  of  frightening  the 
[49] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

trout,  which  may  take  the  fly  at  the 
next  cast  as  if  nothing  out  of  the  usual 
had  happened. 

"Dry  casts,"  or  "false  casts,"  play 
a  most  important  part  in  dry-fly  fish- 
ing, and  are  seldom  used  by  fishermen 
who  are  not  accustomed  to  this  method 
of  angling.  In  wet  fly  fishing  it  is 
customary  to  lift  the  fly  or  flies  from 
the  water,  and  after  the  back-cast  to 
make  immediately  another  forward 
cast,  again  placing  the  lure  or  lures  on 
the  water.  But  it  is  one  of  the  cardi- 
nal principles  of  dry-fly  fishing  not  to 
allow  the  fly  to  touch  the  water  until 
it  has  reached  the  exact  spot  previously 
picked  out  by  the  angler.  The  line  is 
always  lengthened  by  false  casts,  or 
casts  in  the  air,  and  the  fly  is  not  al- 
lowed to  touch  the  surface  of  the 
stream  until  the  angler  sees  that  it 
will  reach  the  desired  position.  The 

[50] 


False  Casts  to  Dry  the  Fly 

dry-fly,  in  order  to  float  readily,  must 
always  be  kept  as  free  from  superflu- 
ous moisture  as  possible.  Therefore, 
after  each  cast  the  fly  must  be  driven 
through  the  air  several  times,  and 
when  the  fly  gets  very  wet,  many 
times.  As  a  rule  three  or  four  false 
casts  will  be  sufficient  to  dry  the  fly; 
at  other  times,  when  for  some  reason 
the  fly  has  become  thoroughly  soaked, 
twenty  or  thirty  trips  through  the  air 
may  be  necessary. 

In  order  to  become  a  proficient  fly- 
fisherman  the  angler  must  learn  to 
use  his  left  hand  skilfully  in  manipu- 
lating the  line.  The  reel  is  an  abso- 
lute necessity  for  holding  the  line,  and 
for  taking  it  in  when  there  is  too  much 
line  out  for  convenience.  But  in  re- 
trieving it,  after  a  cast  up-stream,  the 
reel  must  not  be  depended  upon,  but 
the  line  must  be  stripped  in  with  the 

[51] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

left  hand  (assuming  that  the  angler 
holds  the  rod  in  his  right  hand).  In 
other  words,  the  line  at  practically  all 
times  should  be  grasped  by  the  fingers 
of  the  left  hand  of  the  angler,  while 
between  the  reel  and  the  first  guide  of 
the  rod  it  should  pass  under  the  first 
and  second  fingers  of  the  right  hand, 
and  these  fingers,  pressing  the  line 
against  the  cork  grip,  are  in  a  position 
to  act  as  a  brake  which  always  con- 
trols and  regulates  the  rendering  of 
the  line. 

Of  the  general  methods  of  fly-cast- 
ing much  has  been  written  and  much 
has  been  explained.  And  yet  perfect 
casters  are  rarely  to  be  seen  on  the 
streams.  This  is  a  pity,  as  ability  to 
cast  adds  greatly  to  the  pleasure  of  an- 
gling and  is  an  art  easily  acquired. 
At  times  one  casts  all  day,  while  the 
fish  caught  are  few  and  far  between. 

[52] 


Advice  on  Skilful  Casting 

The  unsuccessful  angler  has  much  more 
satisfaction  in  feeling  that  his  work  has 
been  skilfully  performed  than  he 
would  have  if  in  doubt  as  to  whether 
his  lack  of  success  had  been  due  to  a 
scarcity  of  feeding  fish,  or  to  a  series 
of  bungling  performances  on  his  part. 
To  become  a  good  caster  is  simple  if 
one  learns  a  few  of  the  first  principles 
of  handling  the  rod  and  line.  One  of 
the  greatest  faults  of  anglers  who  have 
difficulty  in  making  accurate  or  long 
casts  is  that  on  the  back  cast  they  al- 
low the  point  of  the  rod  to  go  entirely 
too  far  behind  them.  Some  angling 
writers — many,  in  fact — who  under- 
take the  task  of  teaching  beginners, 
advise  them  to  let  the  rod  go  back 
until  it  reaches  an  angle  of  forty-five 
degrees.  To  do  so  is  a  grievous  fault. 
The  rod  should  be  stopped  when  it  has 
barely  passed  the  perpendicular.  In 

[53] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

wet  fly  angling  it  is  usually  proper  to 
remove  the  fly  from  the  water  with  a 
snap;  the  backward  movement  of  the 
rod  is  stopped  when  slightly  beyond 
a  perpendicular  position;  there  is  a 
pause  long  enough  to  allow  the  line 
to  straighten  out  behind,  and  then  the 
forward  cast  is  begun;  not  much 
strength  is  used,  but  the  spring  of  the 
rod  is  allowed  to  do  practically  all  the 
work.  If  the  man  who  has  not  been 
able  to  cast  well  will  practice  along 
these  lines,  he  will  be  astonished  to 
find  how  far  he  will  soon  be  able  to 
place  his  fly,  and  how  easily  and  ac- 
curately he  can  make  any  length  of 
cast  necessary  in  actual  fishing. 

To  cast  the  floating  fly,  first  strip 
from  the  reel  with  the  left  hand  a  few 
feet  of  line.  Work  the  rod  backward 
and  forward,  holding  the  tip  well  up, 
and  allow  the  fly  to  move  back  and 

[54] 


What  the  Rod  Should  Do 

forth  in  the  air  without  touching  the 
water.  Meanwhile,  keep  stripping  off 
line  until  the  desired  length  has  been 
taken  from  the  reel.  But  do  not  swing 
your  rod  violently  as  if  you  were  try- 
ing to  beat  a  carpet  with  it;  let  its 
movements  be  gentle  and  graceful. 
The  wrist  and  spring  of  the  rod  should 
do  all  the  work.  Allow  the  tip  to  de- 
scribe only  a  small  arc;  that  is,  let  it 
go  only  slightly  beyond  the  perpen- 
dicular on  either  the  forward  or  the 
back  cast.  Gentle  movements  of  the 
rod  in  the  air  are  far  less  liable  to  alarm 
the  trout  than  quick,  violent  motions. 
Before  the  series  of  false  casts  has  been 
begun  the  angler  is  supposed  to  have 
picked  out  some  particular  spot  on  the 
water  where  he  thinks  there  is  a  fish, 
and  therefore  desires  to  place  his  fly. 
He  keeps  his  eyes  on  the  fly  as  it  goes 
through  the  air,  and  when  he  sees  that 

[55] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

there  is  a  sufficient  length  of  line  out 
he  lets  the  imitation  insect  fall  gently 
upon  the  water.  Then  he  allows  the 
fly  to  float  wherever  the  current  takes 
it.  If  the  lure  has  fallen  as  it  should 
fall,  it  sits  on  the  water,  with  its  little 
wings  nicely  "cocked,"  or  upright  in  the 
air,  and  it  looks  for  all  the  world  like  a 
natural  member  of  the  Ephemeridae 
family  off  for  a  little  sight-seeing  trip. 
As  the  fly  is  coming  down-stream  and 
toward  the  angler,  it  is  necessary  to 
strip  in  the  slack  line,  but  this  should 
be  done  carefully,  for  no  unnatural 
motion  must  be  imparted  to  the  in- 
sect, or  a  trout  seeing  it  will  look  upon 
it  with  a  mind  full  of  suspicion. 

While  the  theory  of  making  a  fly 
light  gently  upon  the  water  has  been 
told  many  times,  yet,  as  this  book  may 
fall  into  the  hands  of  some  beginners 
who  do  not  know  how  to  do  it,  it  may 

[56] 


Making  a  Fly  Light  Gently 

be  well  to  repeat  the  instructions  here: 
Do  not  cast  for  the  spot  on  the  water 
where  you  desire  the  fly  to  fall,  but  at 
a  point  in  the  air  a  few  feet  above  this 
spot.  This  is  a  useful  thing  to  know, 
as  dry-flies  must  not  hit  the  water 
with  a  splash. 

And  now,  if  your  first  cast  has  not 
been  successful  in  every  way — if  the 
fly  has  fallen  on  its  side  instead  of 
"cocked" — it  may  be  a  consolation  to 
the  beginner  to  know  that  the  most 
expert  anglers  cannot  always  control 
the  position  that  the  fly  will  assume 
when  it  reaches  the  water;  but  the  ex- 
pert will  not  lose  patience  and  retrieve 
the  fly  too  quickly,  for  he  has  had  too 
much  experience  to  alarm  the  trout 
unnecessarily. 


[57] 


CHAPTER  VI 


Tying  an  Eyed-Fly  to  a  Leader, 
and  Some  Practice  on  a  Hypo- 
thetical Pool 


THERE  are  still  many  technical 
and  tactical  points  that  properly 
might  be   discussed   before   we 
accompany  the  novice  to  the  stream  to 
cast  his  first  dry-fly,  but  perhaps  after 
having  read  the  preceding  pages,  devot- 
ed largely  to  a  description  of  methods 
used  in  handling  the  fly,  the  beginner 
may  think  that  the  information  already 
gained  is  sufficient  to  warrant  at  least 
some  preliminary  practice  on  the  stream. 
As  flies  tied  to  gut  have  been  largely 
used  by  American  fly-fishermen,  and 
as  nearly  all  floating  flies  are  tied  on 
eyed-hooks,  I  have  met  many  anglers 

[581 


Tying  an  Eyed-Fly  to  Gut 

who  have  professed  entire  ignorance  of 
the  way,  or  ways,  of  attaching  eyed- 
flies  to  leaders.  There  are  various 
methods  of  doing  this,  and  they  are  all 
extremely  simple  when  once  learned. 
Several  knots  that  are  efficacious  may 
be  found  illustrated  in  many  angling 
books  and  tackle  catalogues.  After 
having  lost  several  large  fish  in  my 
earliest  experiences  with  eyed-hooks, 
I  then  and  there  became  prejudiced 
against  some  of  the  knots  used  by  an- 
glers in  favor  of  what  is  known  as 
Major  Turk's  knot.  At  times  I  have 
been  criticised  for  using  this,  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  not  as  simple  as  some 
others;  but  in  the  case  of  minor  de- 
tails, each  angler  is  apt  to  think  that 
his  own  way  of  doing  things  is  the 
best,  and  after  some  criticisms  from 
experts  for  whose  opinions  on  most 
matters  relating  to  the  dry-fly  I  have 

[59] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

much  respect,  I  have  found  satisfac- 
tion in  the  fact  that  the  knot  I  have 
used  for  several  years  is  that  recom- 
mended by  Mr.  Halford  and  many 
other  authorities.  Though  other  knots, 
when  properly  tied,  doubtless  hold  as 
well  as  Major  Turk's,  yet,  having  once 
tied  a  fly  to  a  leader  with  the  Turle 
knot,  I  have  a  feeling  that  the  fly  is 
there  to  stay  until  taken  off  or  until 
the  gut  breaks.  It  seems  almost  un- 
necessary to  caution  the  reader  not 
to  attempt  to  tie  a  fly  to  a  leader  until 
the  gut  is  thoroughly  soaked,  but  to 
make  assurance  doubly  sure  I  will  do 
so.  The  Turle  knot  is  made  as  fol- 
lows: 

The  end  of  the  gut  (there  is  no  loop 
on  the  fly  end)  is  put  through  the  eye 
of  the  fly,  and  an  ordinary  slipknot 
tied,  as  in  Fig.  1.  The  loop  is  then 
carefully  pushed  over  the  bend  of  the 

[60] 


Haw  the  Turk  Knot  Is  Tied 


hook  and  over  the  wings,  clearing  both 
wings  and  hackles,  as  in  Figs.  2  and  3. 
It  is  then  pulled  tight  as  in  Fig.  4.  It 


FIG.  1 


FIG  2 


FIG.  8 


FIG   4 


will  be  seen  that  the  knot  does  not  go 
through  the  eye  of  the  fly,  while  the 
loop  is  pulled  tight  between  the  head 
of  the  fly  and  the  eye  of  the  hook. 
Last,  cut  off  the  loose  end,  E  (Fig.  4.) 
We  have  already  learned  that  dry-fly 

[61] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

fishing  was  originally  invented  in  Eng- 
land for  use  on  slow,  clear,  placid 
streams,  and  as  comparatively  smooth 
water  is  often  considered  more  or  less 
necessary  to  the  successful  floating  of 
the  fly,  our  first  practice  will  be  made 
upon  a  pool.  For  the  sake  of  simplicity 
we  will  say  that  the  pool  is  of  more  or 
less  regular  shape,  some  twenty  feet 
long,  and  in  the  neighborhood  of  ten 
feet  wide;  also  for  our  purpose  we  will 
assume  that  it  is  all  good  trout  water, 
from  head  to  tail  and  from  bank  to 
bank.  While  the  surface  of  the  water 
is  not  ruffled,  yet  there  is  a  fairly  good 
current,  slightly  swifter  at  the  centre 
of  the  stream  than  near  the  banks.  We 
are  supposed  to  have  already  fished  the 
waters  below  the  tail  of  the  pool,  so 
we  need  pay  no  attention  to  them  now. 
We  are  wading,  and  we  take  our 
stand  a  few  feet  below  the  pool,  a 

[62] 


The  First  Cast  on  a  Pool 

short  distance  from  the  left  bank,  or, 
as  we  are  fishing  up-stream,  from  the 
bank  at  our  right.  It  is  a  good  rule 
to  cover  carefully  all  promising  water, 
and,  that  we  may  not  disturb  any  trout 
in  good  water  before  we  fish  it,  our 
first  cast  is  over  the  water  nearest  to 
us.  Stripping  some  line  from  the  reel 
with  our  left  hand,  we  make  a  few 
casts  in  the  air  to  lengthen  the  line 
so  that  the  fly  may  be  able  to  reach 
our  objective  point,  which  in  this  case 
—our  first  cast — is  near  the  bank  at 
our  right,  and  from  three  to  five  feet 
above  the  tail  of  the  pool.  The  fly 
lights  gently  and  is  allowed  to  float 
with  the  current  until  it  reaches  the 
end  of  the  pool.  Meanwhile,  as  the 
fly  comes  toward  us,  we  are  stripping 
in  the  slack  line  with  our  left  hand, 
but  so  deliberately  and  gently  that  we 
do  not  in  any  case  "drag"  the  fly. 

[63] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

The  "drag"  is  most  fatal  to  the  suc- 
cess of  the  dry-fly  angler,  and,  with 
the  methods  of  overcoming  it,  will  be 
discussed  at  some  length  in  another 
chapter.  We  have  already  discovered 
that  one  of  the  basic  principles  of  dry- 
fly  fishing  is  the  natural  motion  of  the 
insect  on  the  surface  of  the  stream,  and 
if  this  motion,  or  action  of  the  fly,  is 
disturbed  by  interfering  causes,  one 
might  as  well  give  up  hope  of  tak- 
ing a  fish  until  another  cast  has  been 
made. 

When  ready  to  make  the  second 
cast  in  our  pool,  draw  in  your  mind's 
eye  an  imaginary  line,  beginning  at  the 
spot  where  you  made  your  first  cast, 
straight  across  the  pool  to  the  other 
bank.  Again  make  the  necessary  num- 
ber of  false  casts,  both  to  dry  the  fly 
and  to  lengthen  the  line,  and  then  let 
the  fly  drop  on  the  imaginary  line,  but 

[64] 


Imaginary  Lines  on  a  Pool 

this  time  about  a  foot  to  the  left  of 
your  first  cast.  Go  through  the  same 
operations  of  allowing  the  fly  to  float 
down  to  the  foot  of  the  pool,  lifting  the 
fly  from  the  water,  making  your  false 
casts  in  the  air,  and  let  the  third  cast 
be  about  a  foot  to  the  left  of  the  sec- 
ond cast,  and  on  the  same  imaginary 
line  running  across  the  pool,  and  re- 
peat these  operations  until  your  fly 
has  reached  the  opposite  bank.  Then 
lengthen  the  line  still  further  (and  you 
can  now  also  probably  advance  care- 
fully a  step  or  two  up-stream)  and  let 
the  next  cast  be  near  the  bank  at  the 
right,  but  a  few  feet  above  the  spot 
where  the  first  cast  was  made.  Draw 
another  imaginary  line  across  the 
stream  parallel  with  the  first  one, 
from  the  point  where  the  fly  dropped 
on  the  water  on  this  cast.  Allow  the 
fly  to  float  down,  this  time  not  neces- 

[65] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

sarily  to  the  foot  of  the  pool,  but  well 
below  the  imaginary  line  across  which 
you  made  the  first  series  of  casts;  in 
other  words,  do  not  remove  the  fly 
until  it  has  reached  water  that  has 
been  already  fished.  Continue  across 
and  up  the  pool  in  this  way  until  all 
the  water  has  been  entirely  covered. 
You  can  readily  see  that  the  fly  has 
floated  over  nearly  every  square  foot 
of  the  pool,  and  that  the  casts  have 
been  so  made  that  no  unfished  water 
has  been  disturbed. 

This  is  only  a  general  scheme  for 
fishing  a  pool.  It  must  be  understood 
that  where  distances  in  feet  are  given 
it  is  only  to  illustrate  a  point,  as  the 
distances  between  casts  will  depend 
largely  upon  circumstances  and  will 
be  determined  by  our  own  judgment. 
Apparently  I  have  allowed  for  only  one 
cast  at  each  good  spot.  But  in  practice 

[66] 


Advantages  of  Many  Casts 

this  by  no  means  follows.  While  in 
England,  where  many  purists  cast  only 
at  rising  trout,  not  more  than  two  or 
three  casts  are  usually  made  at  any 
one  fish;  yet  generally  the  American 
dry-fly  angler  has  adopted  entirely  dif- 
ferent rules.  Some  of  our  experts, 
when  they  see  a  spot  where  they  feel 
sure  that  a  good  trout  may  be  feeding, 
cast  in  the  same  place  over  and  over 
again.  There  are  well  authenticated 
cases  where  a  trout  has  apparently 
paid  no  attention  to  a  dry-fly  until 
twenty  or  thirty  casts  have  been  made, 
and  then  has  come  for  it  with  a  rush. 

Though  I  know  that  this  doctrine  is 
diametrically  opposed  to  the  theories 
of  some  English  experts  who  have 
practised  the  art  of  dry-fly  fishing  on 
the  English  chalk  streams  for  thirty  or 
forty  years,  or  even  more,  yet  at  the 
present  time  it  would  be  impossible  to 

[67] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

convince  many  American  anglers  that 
it  is  not  advisable  on  our  streams  to 
cast  over  promising  water  until  one  is 
well  satisfied  that  the  trout  supposed 
to  be  there  is  beyond  hope  of  being 
lured  to  the  surface  at  that  particular 
time.  One  of  my  acquaintances,  who 
had  been  a  successful  dry-fly  fisherman 
for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
caught  his  first  large  trout  with  the 
dry-fly,  after  a  day  of  discouragement, 
on  the  thirty-sixth  cast,  all  the  casts 
being  made  at  one  spot  in  the  pool; 
and  he  met  with  this  first  success  only 
after  having  been  compelled  by  Mr. 
LaBranche,  who  was  standing  by  his 
side,  to  cast  over  this  trout  until  he 
got  it. 

In  the  author's  make-up  there  may 
be  something  akin  to  obstinacy  that 
often  makes  him  linger  long  below  a 
particularly  alluring  stretch  of  water, 

[68] 


Optimism  on  the  Stream 

though  the  looked-for  rises  come  not; 
or  the  compelling  force  may  be  a  very 
persistent  kind  of  hopefulness,  or  an 
enlarged  optimism  that  exhibits  itself 
in  a  marked  degree  when  he  is  casting 
a  fly  in  which  he  thoroughly  believes. 
Sometimes  the  resulting  persistence  is 
rewarded,  as  in  the  following  case: 
On  the  Willowemoc  one  day  I  came 
to  a  most  enticing  little  run,  the  deep 
water  being  only  about  two  or  three 
feet  wide  and  four  or  five  feet  in  depth, 
flowing  swiftly  but  smoothly  along  the 
edge  of  an  elongated  brush  heap  close 
to  the  bank.  Being  in  a  persistent 
and  optimistic  mood,  and  believing 
that  there  must  be  a  good  trout  in 
such  a  delightful  stretch  of  water,  I 
determined  to  remain  there  until  the 
fish  had  been  brought  around  to  my 
way  of  thinking.  For  half  an  hour  I 
floated  fly  after  fly  over  its  supposed 

[69] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

feeding  place,  resting  the  water  from 
time  to  time,  and  then  sat  down  to 
think  it  over,  deciding  after  a  few  more 
casts  to  go  on  up-stream.  In  what  I 
had  decided  would  be  the  final  en- 
deavor, probably  from  fifteen  to  twenty 
casts  had  been  made,  when  I  was  re- 
warded by  the  rise  of  a  trout  of  just 
about  the  size  that  I  had  imagined 
must  be  lurking  in  such  a  splendid  run. 
Mr.  H.  G.  McClelland,  the  author  of  a 
bright  little  English  work  on  artificial 
flies,  advances  the  theory  that  flies  may 
be  "cast  and  recast  so  as  to  create  the 
idea  that  flies  of  this  sort  are  passing 
over  the  fish  in  large  numbers."  While 
the  author  thoroughly  believes  in  the 
idea  of  floating  a  fly  many  times  over 
a  spot  where  the  angler  is  convinced 
that  a  good  trout  lies,  yet  it  should  be 
remembered  that  the  utmost  degree  of 
skill  must  be  shown  to  make  every  cast 

[70] 


Skill  vs.  Trout  Cunning 

so  perfect  that  not  even  twenty  or 
thirty  casts  at  the  same  spot  will 
arouse  the  suspicions  of  the  cunning 
trout. 


[71] 


CHAPTER  VII 


In  which  the  Beginner  Visits  a 
Real  Pool  from  which  a  Few 
Trout  Are  Taken 


THE  first  casts  of  our  beginner, 
accompanied  by  the  author, 
have  been  made  on  an  im- 
aginary pool;  and  from  its  description 
it  might  be  properly  considered  a 
purely  mathematical  or  hypothetical 
pool,  almost  rectangular  in  shape. 
There  is  a  little  real  pool,  on  a  stream 
in  Sullivan  County,  which  frequently 
occupies  a  place  in  the  author's 
thoughts,  because  he  first  cast  a  fly 
on  its  placid  surface  when  he  was  rap- 
idly reaching  the  end  of  the  transi- 
tion period  marking  the  parting  of  the 
ways  between  the  wet  fly  angler  and 

[72] 


Wet  Flies  on  Dry-Fly  Water 

the  enthusiastic  devotee  of  the  float- 
ing fly.  It  is  interesting,  also,  as  hav- 
ing furnished  a  notable  example  of  the 
great  efficacy  of  the  dry-fly  at  a  time 
when  the  sunken  lure  had  proved  en- 
tirely unavailing. 

Toward  the  end  of  a  May  afternoon, 
I  approached  a  very  beautiful  pool, 
though  a  small  one,  and  when  less  than 
a  hundred  yards  below  it,  saw  another 
angler,  a  wet  fly  fisherman,  nearing  it 
from  above;  much  to  my  disappoint- 
ment, I  must  confess,  as  it  was  typical 
dry-fly  water.  I  had  not  been  partic- 
ularly successful  for  some  time,  and 
had  approached  this  pool  with  much 
eagerness.  There  was  nothing  for  me 
to  do,  under  the  circumstances,  but  to 
sit  on  a  large  rock  below  the  pool  and 
watch  the  work  of  the  stranger,  and 
after  seeing  him  place  his  flies  several 
times  I  judged  him  to  be  no  bungler 

[73] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

in  his  favorite  method  of  fishing.  This 
opinion  was  confirmed  later  when  I 
learned  that  he  had  the  reputation  of 
being  an  expert,  and  had  fished  this 
particular  stream  for  years.  After  he 
had  covered  the  pool  thoroughly,  he 
sat  beside  me  and  told  the  story  of  his 
day's  work.  He  had  fished  since  5.30 
A.  M.,  and  up  to  this  time  —  about 
5.30  P.  M. — had  caught  only  two  trout, 
neither  of  them  much  above  the  legal 
limit;  in  the  pretty  pool,  lying  almost 
at  our  feet,  he  had  not  had  a  rise.  The 
water  was  extremely  low,  and  for  sev- 
eral feet  on  the  right-hand  side  of  the 
pool  (properly  the  left-hand  bank,  but 
on  the  right  hand  to  one  fishing  up- 
stream) large  areas  of  the  bed  of  the 
stream  were  entirely  bare.  There  was 
left  in  the  centre  and  on  the  left-hand 
side  a  run  of  fairly  deep  water,  only  a 
few  feet  in  width.  After  comparing 

[74] 


The  Dry -Fly's  Allurements 

notes  with  the  down-stream  angler,  the 
author  picked  up  his  rod  and  ap- 
proached the  foot  of  the  pool  to  see 
if  the  dry-fly  might  not  prove  more 
alluring  to  some  of  the  trout  that  any 
fisherman  would  naturally  suppose 
must  live  in  such  a  pretty  pool.  At 
the  head  of  the  pool  the  stream  came 
tumbling  down  in  the  form  of  a  minia- 
ture water-fall  through  a  narrow  space 
between  rocks.  The  accompanying 
diagram  (Fig  5)  gives  a  fair  idea  of 
this  pool.  In  the  shaded  portions  be- 
tween the  dotted  lines  and  the  banks 
the  water  was  shallow,  the  fishable  part 
of  the  pool  being  the  channel  between 
the  dotted  lines. 

The  method  of  fishing  such  a  pool 
has  been  outlined  in  the  description  of 
our  hypothetical  pool,  and  the  various 
casts  are  indicated  in  the  diagram  by 
the  numerous  letters  X ,  each  X  indi- 

[75] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

eating  a  spot  where  the  fly  was  placed. 
The  places  indicated  by  the  letters  0, 
show  the  various  positions  taken  by 
the  angler  as  he  moved  up-stream. 
The  first  three  casts  were  at  the  very 
beginning  of  the  good  water,  and  a  rise 
was  hardly  expected.  These  might 
well  be  called  preliminary  casts.  But 
hope  began  to  rise  in  the  angler's  breast 
as  the  second  series  of  casts  was  begun; 
and  with  reason,  for  as  the  fly  touched 
the  water  at  the  second  cast  of  this 
series  (indicated  by  A),  a  rainbow  trout 
of  about  ten  inches  rose  to  the  fly  and 
missed.  The  pool  was  then  covered 
carefully  by  the  series  of  casts  shown 
in  the  diagram,  and  there  was  not  an- 
other sign  of  a  fish  until  the  fly  had 
reached  the  position  J3,  where  a  twelve- 
inch  brown  trout  was  hooked,  and  be- 
fore it  had  recovered  from  its  aston- 
ishment had  been  rapidly  and  forcibly 
[76] 


Method  of  Fishing  a  Pool 

led  down  to  the  water  below  the  rock 
M;    for  the   angler  naturally   argued 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

that  if  there  was  a  twelve-inch  fish  at 
B,  there  might  be  a  better  one  at  the 
head  of  the  pool,  and  it  was  advisable 
to  "play"  the  fish  hooked  as  far  away 
from  the  upper  part  of  the  pool  as  pos- 
sible. One  side  of  the  rock  indicated 
by  the  letter  N  sloped  gradually  down 
to  the  surface  of  the  stream.  The  fly 
was  next  cast  upon  the  shelving  side 
of  this  rock  and  allowed  to  slide  down- 
ward until  it  fell  from  the  rock  to 
the  surface  of  the  water,  lighting  most 
gently,  and  with  exactly  the  same  ac- 
tion that  a  natural  insect  would  have 
had  in  similar  circumstances.  As  soon 
as  it  touched  the  surface  of  the  stream 
at  C,  a  brown  trout  of  fourteen  inches 
took  the  fly  with  a  rush.  The  net  re- 
sults of  a  few  minutes'  fishing  in  this 
little  pool  were  two  trout  landed  and 
one  missed. 

It   is   perhaps   unnecessary   to   add 

[78] 


A  Convert  to  the  Dry-Fly 

that  the  wet  fly  angler,  who  had  been 
an  interested  spectator,  then  and  there 
became  an  enthusiast  over  the  floating 
lure,  and  departed  on  his  journey  down- 
stream the  happy  possessor  of  a  dozen 
or  two  of  the  best  English  floating 
flies. 


[79] 


CHAPTER  VIII 


How  the  Dry-fly  May  Be  Used 
on  Rough  Waters  as  Well  as 
on  Placid  Pools 


EVEN  in  fishing  the  little  pool 
that  we  have  just  left  we  have 
violated  the  principles  of  some 
of  the  English  dry-fly  purists,  and  now 
that  we  are  approaching  swifter  and 
rougher  water  to  fish  it  with  the  dry- 
fly,  we  are  about  to  make  a  still  more 
radical  departure  from  the  English 
purist's  methods.  But,  however  much 
the  British  dry-fly  fisherman  might 
protest  from  a  distance  that  he  would 
not  in  any  circumstances  imitate 
American  anglers  in  putting  the  float- 
ing fly  to  such  uses,  yet  I  am  almost 
convinced  that  if  he  were  to  cast  a  fly 

[80] 


The  Typical  Chalk  Stream 

upon  some  of  our  American  streams  he 
would  soon  give  up  his  idea  of  fishing 
only  the  rise,  and  would  begin  to  fish 
the  stream. 

A  study  of  many  pictures  of  the 
well-known  English  chalk  streams  leads 
me  to  believe  that  it  is  the  character 
of  the  streams  themselves  that  makes 
his  method  feasible  and  also  natural. 
To  make  a  mental  picture  of  a  typical 
English  chalk  stream,  recall  in  your 
mind  one  of  our  little  country  brooks, 
winding  gently  through  a  flat  meadow, 
and  then  enlarge  it  several  times. 
Many  photographs  of  English  chalk 
streams  show  long,  broad  stretches  of 
smooth  water.  Within  the  purist's  vi- 
sion, as  he  stands  upon  the  bank  scan- 
ning carefully  the  stream,  are  some- 
times many  hundreds  of  feet  of  this 
placid  water,  and  to  one  who  has 
studied  photographs  of  these  streams, 

[81] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

without  having  seen  the  streams  them- 
selves, one  stretch  of  water  looks  about 
as  good  as  another  from  an  angler's 
stand-point,  though  of  course  they,  too, 
have  their  particularly  favorable  spots. 
In  contrast  with  these  wide,  smooth 
chalk  streams,  imagine  yourself  on  the 
bank  of  a  typical  Sullivan  County  trout 
stream  and  note  the  difference  in  the 
general  conditions.  It  is  true  that  at 
intervals  there  are  long,  smooth  pools. 
But  as  the  angler  stands  in  almost  any 
position  on  one  of  these  streams,  what 
appears  before  him  as  he  looks  up  over 
the  stream?  Long  stretches  of  swift 
water  tumbling  over  a  rocky  bed,  with 
here  and  there  little  surfaces  of  smooth 
water,  above,  below,  or  between  rows 
of  rocks,  and  at  rather  rare  intervals  a 
good  pool.  If  one  stationed  himself 
on  the  banks  of  a  stream  like  this,  de- 
termined not  to  wet  his  line  until  he 

[82] 


Waiting  Long  for  a  Rise 

had  seen  a  rise,  how  long  would  he  be 
compelled  to  wait  before  making  his 
first  cast?  Perhaps  not  more  than  a 
minute,  because  rises  sometimes  occur. 
But,  as  a  rule,  the  delay  would  be  long 
and  tedious.  If  a  purist  had  stationed 
himself  below  the  little  pool  described 
in  the  last  chapter  to  wait  for  a  rise 
at  that  spot,  he  would  have  had  to 
depend  upon  this  bit  of  water  alone  for 
the  rise,  for  the  pool  was  so  situated 
that  there  was  no  other  part  of  the 
stream  within  the  vision  of  the  waiting 
angler  where  there  would  be  any  like- 
lihood of  his  seeing  a  rising  fish.  If 
the  English  purist  had  to  depend  en- 
tirely upon  such  water  for  his  sport, 
would  he  not  adopt  our  American 
method  of  fishing  the  stream  rather 
than  waiting  for  the  rising  fish?  I  am 
inclined  to  think  so. 

It  also  seems  to  the  author  that  the 

[83] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

English  dry-fly  angler's  custom  of  fish- 
ing smooth  water  almost  exclusively  is 
responsible  for  the  belief,  extensively 
held,  that  the  floating  fly  is  not  suit- 
able for  our  American  streams.  But 
suppose  that  conditions  were  suddenly 
changed;  imagine  for  a  moment  that 
the  English  chalk  streams  ceased  to 
exist  in  their  present  form,  and  were 
replaced  by  the  more  turbulent  Ameri- 
can streams,  presenting  rare  opportuni- 
ties of  seeing  a  rising  fish.  Would  the 
English  purist  give  up  his  favorite 
sport,  or  pass  many  days  in  looking  for 
a  rise  that  came  not?  Or  would  he 
make  a  study  of  the  parts  of  the  stream 
most  likely  to  be  the  feeding  places  of 
trout,  and  begin  casting  over  them, 
taking  a  chance  of  enticing  a  fish  to 
his  fly,  though  he  had  not  previously 
seen  a  rise? 

Granting,  then,  that  it  is  not  only 

[84] 


Fishing  the  Rough  Waters 
entirely  proper,  but  advisable,  for  the 
American  angler  to  fish  the  stream  in- 
stead of  fishing  the  rise,  the  proposi- 
tion may  be  advanced  confidently  that 
the  dry-fly  is  almost  as  tempting  in  lur- 
ing trout  from  more  or  less  swift,  rough 
water,  as  it  is  in  taking  them  from  the 
pools.  All  who  have  been  on  trout 
streams  can  remember  many  places 
where  there  are  barriers  formed  by  a 
row  or  group  of  rocks  in  the  centre  of 
the  stream,  the  tops  of  some  of  them 
rising  above  the  surface,  others  entirely 
covered.  The  swift  water  comes  rush- 
ing down  upon  one  of  these  barriers, 
over  the  rocks,  between  them,  and 
around  them.  Above  and  below  the 
rocks  are  splendid  lurking  places  for 
feeding  fish.  We  approach  one  of  these 
groups  of  rocks  carefully  from  down- 
stream, and  cast  our  fly  at  one  side  of 
the  rocks  and  below  them,  allowing  it 

[85] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

to  float  down  as  far  as  advisable  before 
making  another  cast.  One  cast  follows 
another  across  the  stream  until  we  have 
covered  all  the  good  water  below  the 
rocks.  Whether  successful  or  not  in 
taking  a  fish  from  this  water,  we  now 
begin  casting  about  two  or  three  feet 
above  the  rocks,  first  to  the  left  of  them, 
then  directly  above  them,  and  then  to 
the  right  of  them,  letting  our  fly  float 
down  past  the  rocks  before  lifting  it 
from  the  water,  endeavoring  to  tempt 
any  trout  that  may  be  watching  for 
food  from  any  of  these  strongholds. 

Now  a  short  distance  above  these 
rocks  there  is  a  stretch  of  very  swift 
water,  more  or  less  rough.  We  know 
that  at  certain  times  such  water  is  the 
delight  of  the  wet  fly  angler,  but  how 
about  the  dry-fly  man?  Let  us  wait 
and  see.  We  are  still  near  the  right 
bank  of  the  stream  (the  left  as  we  look 

[86] 


A  Dry-Fly  Changes  Its  Rdle 

up-stream),  and  so  we  first  let  our  fly 
drop  on  this  swift  water,  near  the  bank 
to  our  left.  Bing!  A  fine  rainbow 
trout  rose  at  the  first  cast,  but  we 
missed  it,  either  because  we  failed  to 
see  the  quick  flash  of  the  fish  under 
water,  or  because  we  did  not  strike 
quickly  enough.  For  the  dry-fly — 
what  became  of  it?  When  it  touched 
the  surface  it  did  its  best  to  play  its 
dignified  part  of  a  dry-fly,  it  skipped 
along  over  the  turbulent  stream  for  a 
moment,  but  the  water  was  too  rough 
and  strong  for  it  to  keep  afloat,  it  was 
sucked  under,  and,  therefore,  became 
the  wet  fly  that  we  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  use.  Not  exactly  the  same, 
perhaps,  for  this  dry-fly,  though  now 
wet  and  sunken,  still  retains  its  char- 
acter as  an  imitation  of  a  natural  insect. 
Having  had  some  success  with  our  very 
first  cast  in  swift  water,  we  will  continue 

[87] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

to  fish  every  inch  of  these  rapids,  letting 
the  fly  go  where  it  listeth,  playing  the 
part  of  the  wet  fly  or  the  dry-fly,  but 
always  resembling  the  living  insect 
which  it  so  closely  imitates. 

It  is  somewhat  astonishing  at  times 
to  see  over  what  rough  water  a  dry- 
fly  can  float  successfully.  The  inequal- 
ities of  the  surface  of  a  stream,  of 
course,  depend  upon  the  roughness  of 
the  bottom.  Sometimes  the  water 
rushes  down  with  its  surface  broken 
into  what  appear  to  be  small  waves, 
more  or  less  regular  in  shape.  It  is  a 
pretty  sight  to  watch  a  dry-fly  coming 
down  over  such  water,  apparently  al- 
most skipping  from  wave  to  wave;  and 
the  action  of  the  fly  at  this  time  seems 
to  be  tremendously  enticing  to  any  fish 
that  may  see  it. 

If  the  angler  uses  his  powers  of  ob- 
servation he  will  notice  that  in  almost 

[88] 


Casting  on  Glassy  Glides 

all  stretches  of  rough  water,  however 
swift  and  turbulent,  there  are  little 
smooth  spots  that  might  be  properly 
called  glassy  glides.*  Cast  your  fly  at 
the  top  of  one  of  these  glides,  and  it 
will  float  perfectly  until  it  is  seized  by 
a  trout  or  reaches  the  turbulent  water. 
While  the  fly  will  often  float  suc- 
cessfully over  a  rough  surface,  yet,  if 
it  is  sucked  under,  the  angler  is  cer- 
tainly in  no  worse  position  than  the 
user  of  the  sunken  fly  under  his  very 
best  conditions.  After  having  been 
through  these  swift  waters,  the  fly  may 
have  a  bedraggled  appearance,  and 
look  like  anything  but  the  natty  in- 
sect, with  wings  erect,  that  it  was  when 
first  taken  from  the  fly  box.  The  an- 
gler should  take  an  old  handkerchief,  or 

*  This  idea  of  fishing  these  glassy  glides  with  a 
dry-fly  appeared  in  an  article  written  in  1911  by  Mr. 
Walter  McGuckin,  one  of  New  York's  best  dry-fly 
anglers. 

[89] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

rag,  and  squeeze  the  fly  in  its  folds  to 
get  out  some  of  the  water  that  it  has 
absorbed,  and  then,  putting  it  close 
to  his  mouth,  blow  into  its  feathers 
and  hackles.  This  will  restore  to  the 
hackles  their  old  "fluffy"  appearance. 

Next,  he  should  straighten  out  the 
wings  and  coax  them  into  shape  with 
the  fingers,  finally  oiling  the  fly  again 
when  approaching  smooth  water. 

One  of  the  beauties  of  fishing  the 
rough  stretches  is  the  very  near  ap- 
proach to  the  fish  that  may  be  made 
by  the  careful  angler,  and  the  advan- 
tages and  possibilities  of  close  fishing 
will  form  the  subject  of  a  little  talk 
in  a  subsequent  chapter. 


[90] 


CHAPTER  IX 


That  Cruel  Thing,  the  "Drag" 
and  How  Its  Evil  Effects  May 
Be  Overcome 


HAVING  learned  the  great  part 
that  naturalness  plays  in  dry- 
fly  angling,  and  that  the  action 
of  the  fly  upon  the  water  must  resem- 
ble in  all  ways  the  movements  of  a 
live  insect  similarly  placed,  we  now 
come,  in  the  regular  course  of  events, 
to  that  bane  of  the  dry-fly  fisherman, 
the  "drag."  It  is  easy  to  say  that 
the  fly  must  at  all  times  float  down- 
stream naturally  with  no  other  motion 
than  that  imparted  by  the  current;  but, 
while  nothing  impedes  the  life-like 
action  of  the  living  insect,  we  cannot 
overlook  the  fact  that  the  little  imi- 

[91] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

tation  fly  labors  under  the  disadvan- 
tage of  having  attached  to  it  leader 
and  line,  and  that  these  impediments 
to  its  freedom  of  movement  often  tax 
to  the  utmost  the  skill  of  the  angler. 

"  But  what  a  cruel  thing  is  that  which 
has  been  well  named  the  'drag,'"  ex- 
claims Mr.  Dewar.  "Trout  do  not 
like  even  natural  insects  to  play  pranks 
on  the  water,"  he  says.  "The  drag 
is  one  of  the  greatest  protections  in 
rather  fast  running  streams  that  Nat- 
ure affords  the  trout  against  the  dry- 
fly  fishermen." 

Imagine  for  a  moment  a  little  live 
dun  on  the  surface  of  a  rapidly  flowing 
stream.  It  is  tiny,  delicate  in  con- 
struction, as  light  as  a  piece  of  thistle- 
down, and  to  resist  even  the  weakest 
current  is  as  powerless  as  a  small  child 
would  be  if  thrown  into  the  Niagara 
whirlpool.  It  must  go  wherever  the 

[92] 


A  Frail  Dun's  Helplessness 

currents,  varying  in  swiftness  and  in 
direction,  take  it.  Floating  down  over 
a  swift  run,  it  is  now  in  an  eddy,  now 
in  a  swirling  whirlpool.  Like  a  little 
piece  of  buoyant  cork,  it  follows  only 
the  motions  of  the  current.  Now  let 
us  imagine  that  instead  of  being  abso- 
lutely free  from  all  restraint,  the  in- 
sect had  tied  around  its  delicate  neck 
a  long  leader,  to  whose  other  end  was 
attached  a  somewhat  heavy  line.  Sup- 
pose this  line  to  be  lying  in  a  swifter 
current,  or  in  a  current  having  a  dif- 
ferent direction  from  the  current  urging 
on  the  fly.  How  long  could  the  frail 
dun  keep  up  the  natural  motion  given 
to  it  by  the  eddy  or  whirlpool  upon 
whose  moving  surface  it  temporarily 
found  itself?  The  strong  down-stream 
current  would  seize  the  line,  and  the 
action  of  the  fly  would  depend,  not 
upon  the  movements  of  the  eddying 

[93] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

water  upon  which  it  lay,  but  upon  the 
force  exerted  by  the  current  upon  the 
line,  and  without  power  of  resistance 
it  would  be  dragged  wherever  the  line 
happened  to  take  it.  The  same  thing 
would  occur  in  the  case  of  the  imita- 
tion insect  forming  the  angler's  float- 
ing lure. 

These  unnatural  motions  given  to  the 
fly  by  the  varying  and  conflicting  forces 
exerted  upon  the  fly  and  line  give  rise 
to  what  anglers  call  the  drag.  This 
drag  may  occur  when  the  line  is  in 
swifter  water  than  the  fly,  when  it  is 
in  a  slower  current  than  the  fly,  or 
when  there  is  a  difference  in  the  direc- 
tions of  the  currents.  The  drag  fre- 
quently makes  itself  evident  when  one 
casts  across  stream  or  up-stream  and 
across.  Near  the  opposite  bank  where 
the  fly  is  placed  the  current  may  be 
sluggish,  while  in  the  centre  of  the 

[94] 


How  the  Drag  Is  Caused 

stream  it  rushes  along  swiftly.  The 
line  falls  on  this  fast  running  water; 
the  fly,  if  unattached  to  a  leader,  would 
pursue  its  way  leisurely  down-stream, 
wherever  the  slowly  flowing  currents 
naturally  took  it,  but  the  gentle  force 
exerted  upon  the  small  insect  is  almost 
immediately  overcome  by  the  powerful 
pull  of  the  line,  and  instead  of  follow- 
ing its  own  natural  course  a  very  evi- 
dent drag  sets  in. 

In  Fig.  6,  0  represents  the  position 
of  the  angler,  A  the  place  where  the 
fly  lights,  and  F  the  spot  where  the 
strong  midstream  current  exerts  its 
greatest  force  upon  the  line.  The  nat- 
ural direction  of  the  fly  would  be  as 
indicated  by  the  line  A  B.  But  its 
actual  direction  is  the  resultant  of  the 
two  forces  acting  upon  fly  and  line, 
and  it  follows  approximately  a  direction 
indicated  by  the  dotted  line  A  C.  The 

[95] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

arrow  shows  the  direction  of  the  cur- 
rent, and  also  the  place  where  its 
greatest  force  is  exerted. 

It  can  be  readily  understood  that  no 


Fio.  6 

live  insect  would  go  through  any  such 
unnatural  performances,  and  that  a 
trout  seeing  it  would  utterly  refuse  to 
take  a  fly  acting  in  such  a  strange 
manner. 

[96] 


Another  Type  of  Drag 

Now  let  us  take  up  another  condi- 
tion where  the  current  is  swift  at  the 
opposite  bank  and  slow  in  the  centre 
of  the  stream.  The  natural  direction 


Fio.  7 

of  the  fly  (Fig.  7)  would  be  from  A  to 
B,  but  the  centre  of  the  line  would 
travel  much  more  slowly,  and  again 
the  fly  would  have  a  tendency  to  take 
a  direction  somewhat  similar  to  the 
course  shown  by  the  dotted  line  A  C; 

[97] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

except  that  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  in  these  diagrams  it  is  not  clearly 
shown  that  both  line  and  fly  are  con- 
stantly moving,  though  at  different 
speeds,  and  that  as  they  go  down- 
stream their  relative  positions  would  be 
ever  changing.  In  Fig.  6  the  centre 
of  the  line,  the  current  in  midstream 
being  swifter,  would  have  a  constantly 
increasing  downward  curve,  while  in 
Fig.  7  the  curve  would  be  upward. 
But  the  positions  of  line  and  fly  would 
be  moving  constantly  down-stream. 
The  diagrams  have  been  drawn  in  this 
simple  form  to  prevent  the  confusion 
that  might  result  from  complicated 
drawings  attempting  to  show  the  al- 
ways changing  curves  in  the  line. 

The  drag  is  again  in  evidence  when 
one  casts  the  fly  up-stream  on  a  com- 
paratively smooth  piece  of  water,  while 
the  line  falls  on  a  swifter  current  be- 
[98] 


The  Drag  Above  the  Rocks 

tween  the  spot  where  the  fly  lights  and 
the  position  of  the  angler. 

In  Fig.  8,  the  angler  stands  at  0 
and  casts  the  fly  at  the  spot  indicated 


B 


O 

FIG.  8 

by  A,  which  is  comparatively  smooth 
water,  above  a  group  of  rocks  be- 
neath the  surface  at  R;  below  these 
rocks  the  water  breaks  into  a  rapid 
run,  where,  at  B,  it  is  very  swift.  The 
line  is  carried  down  by  this  swift  run 

[99] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

at  such  a  speed  that  the  fly  at  A,  in  a 
much  more  gentle  current,  has  a  pro- 
nounced unnatural  drag  over  the  sur- 
face. 

Now,  turning  back  to  Fig.  6,  let  us 
imagine  that  instead  of  the  water  flow- 
ing in  its  natural  down-stream  direction 
there  was  an  eddy  at  A  moving  up- 
stream and  across  stream.  The  drag 
of  the  fly  would  be  still  more  pro- 
nounced than  in  the  conditions  which 
this  diagram  is  supposed  to  illustrate. 
So  in  all  conceivable  cases  where  the 
direction  or  swiftness  of  the  water 
where  the  fly  lights  is  different  from 
that  where  the  line  falls,  the  drag  sets 
in  unless  the  angler  takes  some  precau- 
tionary measure  to  prevent  it. 

The  preventive  measure  generally 
most  effective  is  the  slack-line  cast. 
In  Fig.  6,  the  line  0  A,  it  will  be  no- 
ticed, is  absolutely  straight — that  is, 

[100] 


Postponing  the  Drag 

the  shortest  distance  between  the  two 
points  0  and  A;  and  the  line  of  the 
angler  is  represented  as  taut,  without 
any  slack  and  without  a  curve.  The 
current  will  therefore  seize  it  as  soon 
as  it  reaches  the  water,  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  drag  theoretically  will  be 
immediate.  Let  us  not,  then,  cast  an 
absolutely  taut  line,  but  endeavor  to 
throw  the  line  so  that  the  drag  will  be 
postponed,  if  such  a  thing  is  possible. 
It  is  obvious  that  if  the  line  were  not 
so  straight  when  it  fell,  the  drag  might 
not  make  itself  evident  until  the  cur- 
rent had  straightened  it  out  somewhat. 
So  we  will  endeavor  to  make  a  slack- 
line  cast,  and  instead  of  having  it  fall 
in  a  perfectly  straight  line,  0  A,  will 
try  to  have  it  take  a  position  on  the 
water  somewhat  as  represented  by  the 
irregularly  curved  line  0  F  A.  It  will 
be  noticed  that  the  curve,  or  "belly," 

[101] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

of  the  line  lies  in  an  up-stream  direc- 
tion, and  that  before  the  current  can 
carry  the  centre  of  the  line  far  enough 
down-stream  to  produce  a  drag,  the 
fly  will  have  an  opportunity  to  float 
down  a  short  distance  naturally.  As 
the  trout  we  are  after  may  be  only 
a  few  inches  below  A,  the  fly,  let  us 
hope,  will  float  without  drag  until  it 
is  over  the  fish.  So  in  all  cases  where 
a  drag  is  imminent,  cast  a  slack  line. 
Under  the  conditions  illustrated  by 
Fig.  7,  where  the  current  in  the  centre 
of  the  stream  is  slow  and  where  the 
fly  lights  swift,  the  "belly"  in  the  line 
should  naturally  be  down-stream.  When 
casting  directly  up-stream,  in  order  to 
prevent  lining  the  trout — that  is,  hav- 
ing the  leader  fall  directly  over  its 
head,  endeavor  to  throw  an  up-stream 
curve  in  the  leader  so  that  the  gut  will 
float  down  behind  the  fly. 

[102] 


Making  a  Slack-Line  Cast 

We  have  already  found  that  in  order 
to  make  a  fly  "light  like  thistle-down," 
it  is  necessary  to  cast  it  not  at  the  spot 
where  you  wish  it  to  fall,  but  a  short 
distance  directly  over  the  spot.  In 
making  the  slack-line  cast,  the  fly,  as 
the  line  is  lengthened,  is  cast  in  the  air 
a  few  feet  beyond  the  spot  where  the  an- 
gler wishes  it  to  alight  as  well  as  over 
it.  When  the  line  is  nearly  straight, 
and  before  the  rod  has  reached  its  cor- 
rect position  at  the  end  of  the  forward 
cast,  the  forward  sweep  of  the  rod  is 
retarded  and  the  motion  of  the  imi- 
tation insect  on  its  onward  flight  is 
checked;  the  tip  of  the  rod  is  imme- 
diately lowered,  and  instead  of  the  line 
falling  taut  it  drops  loosely  upon  the 
water  in  irregular  waves  or  curves.  If 
the  result  aimed  at  is  successfully  ac- 
complished, the  fly  will  have  for  a  cer- 
tain length  of  time  a  natural  motion. 

[103] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

The  duration  of  this  favorable  condition 
of  affairs  will  depend  upon  the  varying 
strength  of  the  currents  and  other 
causes. 


[104] 


CHAPTER  X 


Wilderness  Fishing  Different  from 
Taking  "Educated9'  Trout  from 
Much-Fished  Streams 


INSTRUCTIONS  for  angling  with 
the  dry-fly  often  seem  to  present 
to  the  beginner  difficulties  that 
might  have  a  tendency  to  discourage 
him.  Yet  the  proper  handling  of  the 
floating  fly  is  practically  as  easy  as  the 
skilful  management  of  the  sunken  fly, 
and  an  expert  wet  fly  fisherman  should 
have  no  difficulty  in  becoming  profi- 
cient as  a  dry-fly  angler  in  a  compara- 
tively short  time.  In  the  London 
Field  a  well-known  angling  writer  has 
said  recently:  "Startling  as  the  state- 
ment may  sound,  it  is  probably  true 
that  the  really  good  wet  fly  fisherman 

[105] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

is  a  greater  rarity  than  the  really  good 
dry-fly  man."  And  later,  Mr.  R.  B. 
Marston,  the  veteran  editor  of  the 
London  Fishing  Gazette,  echoed  this 
sentiment  by  saying:  "A  real  expert 
with  the  wet  fly  is  a  much  rarer  bird 
than  one  with  the  dry." 

In  discussing  the  degrees  of  expert- 
ness  of  wet  fly  fishermen  it  is  neces- 
sary, in  America  at  least,  to  differen- 
tiate the  conditions  under  which  the 
fishing  is  done.  It  is  well  known  that 
in  many  waters  of  the  wilderness  there 
are  vast  numbers  of  trout  in  keen  com- 
petition for  food,  and  that  these  fish 
see  an  angler  and  his  feathered  lures 
infrequently.  Almost  anything  in  the 
way  of  a  small  bunch  of  bright  feathers 
and  glittering  tinsel  tied  to  a  hook 
seems  often  to  prove  an  irresistible 
attraction  to  the  trout,  and  the  pres- 
entation of  such  flies  need  not  be 

[106] 


Imitating  a  Trout's  Fin 

skilfully  made  at  all  times  to  meet  with 
unqualified  success.  Hence  it  is  that 
much  of  the  advice  written  in  this 
country  for  the  benefit  of  wet  fly  fish- 
ermen may  be  traced  to  those  whose 
principal  fishing  has  been  done  in  wil- 
derness waters,  and  is  intended  for 
others  who  go  far  beyond  the  bounds 
of  civilization  for  their  piscatorial  pleas- 
ure. Many  of  the  most  popular  and 
killing  wet  flies  imitate  neither  insect 
nor  any  other  form  of  life.  The  Parma- 
cheene  belle,  for  instance,  the  most 
popular  of  all  lures  in  Northern  waters, 
was  invented  in  the  early  eighties  by 
Mr.  H.  P.  Wells,  to  imitate  the  belly- 
fin  of  a  trout.  Why  a  belly -fin,  so  sel- 
dom seen  by  a  fish  detached  from  the 
body  of  its  original  owner,  should  be 
conceived  to  be  a  natural  or  a  favorite 
food  has  not  been  explained.  Yet  the 
attractions  of  this  fly  in  many  lakes 

[107] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

and  streams  cannot  be  overestimated. 
The  author  fished  the  wilderness  waters 
of  northern  Maine  for  several  years  be- 
fore the  Parmacheene  belle  had  come 
into  existence,  and  in  those  days  the 
grizzly  king  proved  an  irresistible  lure, 
day  in  and  day  out;  while  at  certain 
times  the  red  ibis,  or  any  other  fly 
made  of  bright  red  feathers,  seemed 
to  be  a  piece  de  resistance  that  no 
trout  could  forego  the  temptation  of 
seizing.  I  trust  that  wet  fly  fisher- 
men whose  faith  in  the  Parmacheene 
belle  is  deep-seated,  will  not  think  that 
I  am  speaking  disparagingly  of  their 
favorite  lure.  Many  times  in  recent 
years  I  have  fished  streams  not  so  far 
north  as  Maine,  where  an  angler  would 
be  practically  sure  of  success  if  he  had 
in  his  fly-book  no  other  fly  than  this 
imitation  of  the  trout's  fin.  But  it 
has  always  been  a  question  in  my 

[108] 


Is  This  Really  Fly-Fishing? 

mind  as  to  what  kind  of  food  the  trout 
thought  was  being  presented,  when 
fished  for  with  this  lure.  The  ques- 
tion might  naturally  be  asked,  and  not 
ill-naturedly,  whether  the  use  of  the 
imitation  of  the  belly-fin  of  a  trout 
should  be  classed  as  fly-fishing  or  bait- 
fishing.  Is  it  not  possible  that  the 
trout  may  take  this  red,  white,  and 
yellow  counterfeit  for  a  minnow  or 
some  other  small  fish  as  it  moves 
through  the  water  as  commonly  man- 
ipulated by  fly-fishermen  using  it? 
And  may  not  the  same  question  be 
asked  when  the  silver  doctor  and  other 
"fancy"  favorites  of  the  wilderness 
are  used?  It  is  certain  that  these 
flies  are  not  made  with  the  idea  of 
imitating  winged  insects  or  the  larvae 
of  winged  insects;  nor  as  a  rule  do 
wet  fly  fishermen  present  them  in  a 
way  to  make  their  movements  re- 

[109] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

semble   the   natural    action   of   living 
flies. 

But  while  we  have  freely  admitted 
the  great  killing  powers  of  the  popu- 
lar Parmacheene  belle,  not  only  in  wil- 
derness streams,  but  in  other  waters 
not  so  far  removed  from  civilization, 
there  is  little  question  that  it  is 
an  absolutely  useless  lure  in  many 
of  the  well-known  and  much-fished 
streams  of  Sullivan  County,  New  York, 
Pike  County,  Pennsylvania,  and  other 
similar  waters.  I  make  this  state- 
ment not  entirely  from  my  own  ex- 
perience, but  on  the  testimony  of  skil- 
ful anglers  who  have  fished  these 
streams  for  many  years,  and  who  have 
tried  on  them  at  various  times  nearly 
all  known  flies.  Relying  upon  the 
trustworthiness  of  information  gained 
from  such  long  experience,  I  have 
seldom,  if  ever,  taken  on  my  trips  to 
[no] 


Educated  Trout  Particular 

these  waters  wet  flies  that  had  been 
favorites  when  used  on  less  civilized 
streams. 

Expert  anglers  who  make  a  practice 
of  visiting  such  streams  as  the  Beaver- 
kill,  Willowemoc,  and  Esopus,  espe- 
cially after  the  early  weeks  of  spring, 
when  the  water  has  become  low  and 
clear,  also  seem  to  be  unanimously  of 
the  opinion  that  even  an  imitation  fly, 
tied  to  resemble  as  closely  as  possible 
an  insect  on  which  the  trout  are  accus- 
tomed to  feed,  will  not  be  taken  by  one 
of  the  "educated"  fish  of  these  streams, 
or  similar  streams,  if  when  on  or  in  the 
water  it  does  not  have  the  same  action 
as  the  live  insect;  and  that  instead  of 
attracting  the  fish  the  imitation  fly 
will  have  an  exactly  contrary  effect  if 
it  is  pulled  through  or  across  the  cur- 
rent in  the  manner  commonly  adopted 
by  some  users  of  the  sunken  fly. 
[ill] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

Is  it  not  to  the  fact  that  many  fly- 
fishermen  have  learned  the  art  in  the 
wilderness,  where  trout  are  not  shy  or 
over-particular  as  to  how  the  artificial 
fly  is  presented  to  them,  that  the  more 
or  less  general  truth  of  the  statement 
that  "a  real  expert  with  the  wet  fly  is 
a  much  rarer  bird  than  one  with  the 
dry"  is  due?  Is  it  not  true  that  even 
a  partially  "educated"  trout  is  liable 
to  notice  the  unusual  character  of  the 
movements  of  a  weak,  flying  insect 
breasting  heavy  currents,  and  to  be- 
come suspicious  of  them?  The  larvae 
of  some  aquatic  insects,  hatched  in  the 
soil  of  the  bed  of  the  stream,  or  among 
aquatic  plants,  after  having  reached 
their  full  growth,  seek  the  surface  by 
climbing  up  on  the  plants,  or  by  swim- 
ming; and  when  performing  these  acts 
are  often  taken  by  the  trout  greedily. 
But  can  it  be  denied  that  at  any  other 

[112] 


Up-Stream  vs.  Dawn-Stream 

time  the  only  way  in  which  these  larvae 
can  approach  the  trout  without  caus- 
ing suspicion  is  by  being  carried  down- 
stream by  the  current,  either  on  or  be- 
neath the  surface  of  the  stream?  The 
dry-fly  angler  did  not  by  any  means 
invent  the  up-stream  method  of  fish- 
ing, nor  has  it  been  confined  to  his 
cult.  Arguments,  apparently  almost 
unanswerable,  for  fishing  up-stream 
were  made  by  Mr.  W.  C.  Stewart  in 
"The  Practical  Angler,"  published  in 
1857,  while  Mr.  David  Webster,  in 
"The  Angler  and  the  Loop-Rod" 
(1885),  may  be  said  to  have  completely 
riddled  many  of  the  usual  arguments  in 
favor  of  down-stream  methods.  Mr. 
Webster's  opinion  is  worthy  of  atten- 
tion as  he  succeeded  in  making  a  liv- 
ing for  many  years  by  fly-fishing  for 
trout  in  Scottish  streams.  The  best 
argument  ever  written,  in  the  judg- 

[113] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

ment  of  the  author,  for  the  wet  fly 
appears  in  Mr.  G.  E.  M.  Skues'  "Minor 
Tactics  of  the  Chalk  Stream,"  pub- 
lished in  1908.  Mr.  Skues  is  as  great 
a  believer  in  the  imitation  theory  as 
the  members  of  the  dry-fly  school,  uses 
imitation  insects  no  larger  than  the 
tiny  flies  of  the  dry-fly  angler,  and 
casts  the  fly  in  exactly  the  same  man- 
ner as  the  dry-fly  fishermen,  that 
is,  up-stream;  but  his  flies  sink,  and 
are  borne  down  by  the  current  be- 
neath the  surface.  That  they  may  not 
sink  too  deeply  he  oils  the  leader  up 
to  within  a  few  inches  of  the  fly  so 
that  all  but  one  or  two  links  of  the 
gut  will  float  upon  the  surface.  In  a 
debate  held  at  a  meeting  of  the  An- 
glers' Club  of  New  York  in  March, 
1912,  on  the  subject  of  the  dry-fly 
versus  the  wet  fly,  the  very  strongest 
arguments  used  by  those  who  spoke 
[114] 


The  Trout  Looks  Up-Stream 

for  the  sunken  lure  were  that  the  ex- 
pert wet  fly  angler  used  precisely  the 
same  tackle,  including  gossamer  leaders 
and  imitation  flies,  as  the  dry-fly  fish- 
erman, and  presented  his  lures  in  the 
same  way;  that  is,  by  casting  up- 
stream and  allowing  the  flies  to  be  car- 
ried down  naturally  by  the  current. 

We  have  learned  that  a  trout  al- 
ways lies  with  its  head  up-stream,  fac- 
ing the  current.  Who  would  think  of 
attempting  to  stalk,  under  usual  con- 
ditions, an  animal  from  any  other  po- 
sition when  it  could  be  stalked  just  as* 
easily  from  behind?  The  angler  can 
approach  much  nearer  to  a  trout  when 
coming  up  from  behind  it,  can  hook  it 
to  better  advantage,  and  can  play  it 
in  water  that  has  already  been  fished 
by  him  so  that  good  unfished  water 
will  not  be  disturbed.  And  yet  no  less 
an  authority  than  Dr.  Henshall  has 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

comparatively  recently,  in  a  published 
work,  expressed  the  opinion  that  dry- 
fly  fishing  will  not  find  many  adherents 
in  this  country,  "for  one  reason,  that 
the  dry-fly  must  be  cast  up-stream, 
which  will  never  be  a  favorite  method 
with  American  anglers  for  well-known 


reasons." 


Can  these  "well-known  reasons" 
existing  in  Dr.  Henshall's  mind  be 
perhaps  more  potent  than  those  ad- 
vanced by  Mr.  Robert  Blakey,  who, 
in  a  book  published  in  1846,  speaks  of 
the  "almost  impossibility"  of  a  trout 
seizing  a  fly  cast  up-stream,  claiming 
that  "even  if  he  should  take  it  the 
power  is  lost  to  retain  him,"  and  class- 
ifies up-stream  fishing  as  among  "the 
many  crotchety  and  fanciful  rules  that 
often  come  to  light  in  the  progress  of 
angling"? 

Let    the    beginners,    however,    who 

[116] 


Skill  in  Handling  Tackle 

read  this  little  work,  fish  up-stream 
exclusively,  and  if  they  will  learn  to 
handle  their  tackle  skilfully,  so  that 
they  will  always  have  perfect  control 
of  fly,  leader,  and  line  as  they  are 
borne  down  toward  them  by  the  cur- 
rent, they  will  find  it  difficult  to  con- 
jure up  in  their  minds  any  known  rea- 
son, or  any  good  reason,  why  they 
should  return  to  the  old-fashioned 
method  of  down-stream  fishing. 


[117] 


CHAPTER  XI 


Often  Dry-Fly  Anglers  Like  Con- 
ditions that  Prove  the  Waterloo 
of  the  Wet  Fly  Man 


NEARLY  all  dry-fly  literature 
seems  to  carry  with  it  a  tale 
of  success.  Not,  however,  I 
think,  that  the  user  of  the  floating  fly 
is  an  egotist,  or  is  given  to  boasting; 
but  in  writing  of  angling  matters  it  is 
natural  to  forget  our  days  of  hard  luck 
and  to  remember  only  those  particu- 
larly bright  occasions  when  we  have 
gone  home  in  the  evening  with  a  cheer- 
ful heart. 

There  is  no  question  that  the  wet 
fly  angler  can  tell  his  tales  of  fortunate 
days  on  the  streams  as  well  as  the  dry- 
fly  fisherman.  If  I  were  to  argue  the 

[118] 


Angling  Art  and  Pleasure 

question  of  dry-fly  versus  wet  fly,  I 
should  ignore  the  comparative  killing 
powers  of  both,  and  base  the  argument 
for  the  floating  fly  entirely  upon  the 
pleasure  to  be  derived  from  its  use. 
To  me  dry-fly  angling  is  the  most  ar- 
tistic, most  fascinating,  and  most  skil- 
ful of  all  out-door  sports,  though  I 
freely  accord  to  the  wet  fly  angler  the 
privilege  of  making  any  claim  that  he 
chooses  for  his  favorite  lure.  We 
probably  all  believe  the  saying  that 
"The  ranks  of  anglers  do  not  contain 
a  large  number  of  aggressive  and  intol- 
erant folk,"  and  agree  with  Mr.  T.  E. 
Pritt  when  he  says  that  "One  of  the 
charms  of  angling  is  that  it  presents 
an  endless  field  for  argument,  specula- 
tion, and  experiment." 

That  the  wet  fly  has  been  for  many 
years  a  successful  lure,  and  on  many 
waters  will  remain  so  for  years  to  come, 

[119] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

there  can  be  no  doubt.  It  has  been  so 
successful  in  wilderness  fishing  that 
few  American  anglers  have  felt  the 
need  of  any  other  lure.  The  user  of  the 
sunken  fly  is  in  his  glory  in  swift-run- 
ning streams  and  in  rough  water.  In 
the  early  spring-time,  when  the  streams 
are  high,  turbulent,  and  at  times  dis- 
colored, he  goes  forth  with  a  feeling  of 
the  utmost  confidence;  moreover,  he 
would  consider  all  these  conditions  in 
his  favor,  and,  if  he  were  to  make 
comparisons,  would  think  that  they 
were  against  the  success  of  the  dry-fly 
enthusiast.  But  later  in  the  spring 
the  streams  become  low,  the  water  is 
of  crystal  clearness,  and  there  are  quiet 
pools  and  smooth  runs  where  there  is 
hardly  a  chance  of  the  wet  fly  angler 
meeting  with  success. 

"We  have  all  heard  tales,"  says  Mr. 
Dewar,  "of  men  who  can  take  trout, 

[120] 


The  Faith  of  an  Eccentric 

and  take  them  fairly,  with  a  wet  fly 
under  any  known  conditions,  or  on 
any  water  where  there  are  trout  to 
take;  but  we  have  heard,  too,  of 
showers  of  fish  from  the  clouds."  And 
again  this  author  says:  "The  man 
who  swears  by  the  sunk  fly  style 
under  normal  conditions  on  the  Test 
or  Itchen"  (smooth,  placid  streams), 
"is  an  eccentric." 

And  yet  the  conditions  that  prove 
the  Waterloo  of  the  wet  fly  fisherman 
are  frequently  those  most  desired  by 
the  user  of  the  floating  fly.  While  often 
the  greatest  successes  of  the  sunken  fly 
are  obtained  in  the  early  spring,  before 
the  waters  have  gone  down  to  their 
summer  conditions,  it  is  seldom  that 
the  dry-fly  angler  is  seen  upon  the 
streams  until  the  warm  weather  has 
come  and  the  water  is  naturally  low 
and  glass-like  in  its  transparency.  On 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

this  low  water  and  on  the  still  pools 
the  one  practical  method  of  deceiving 
the  trout  is  by  means  of  the  dry-fly. 

Another  mecca  of  the  devotee  of  the 
floating  fly  is  the  stream  that  has  been 
fished  for  years  and  that  frequently  has 
the  reputation  of  having  been  "fished 
out."  But  many  streams  bear  this 
reputation  undeservedly.  It  has  come 
to  them  on  account  of  the  frequent 
lack  of  success  of  anglers  who  fish  them. 
In  New  York  State  there  is  a  beauti- 
ful stream  on  whose  banks  and  in  whose 
bed  many  fly -fishermen  may  be  seen 
throughout  the  season.  In  the  summer 
of  1911  some  twenty  anglers  were  stop- 
ping at  a  comfortable  inn  near  its  banks. 
The  weather  and  w^ater  conditions  were 
very  poor  from  their  stand-point. 
Their  "hard  luck"  had  been  really 
heart-rending.  "Fished  out"  was  a 
frequent  cry  as  the  discouraged  fisher- 

[122] 


A  Really  Astonishing  Rise 

men  returned  to  the  inn  at  night.  In- 
deed, it  seemed  so.  But  one  afternoon 
toward  sunset  some  of  us  saw  on  a 
large  pool  near  the  inn  one  of  the 
most  astonishing  rises  of  trout  that  it 
had  been  our  privilege  to  see  in  many 
years.  There  seemed  to  be  trout  every- 
where, and  most  of  them  were  large. 
How  did  this  agree  with  the  "fished- 
out"  theory? 

Evidently  there  were  still  fish  in  the 
stream,  but  why  the  almost  total  fail- 
ure of  these  anglers  to  take  them  with 
a  fly?  Was  it  due  to  the  lack  of  in- 
sect life,  and  had  these  trout  become 
bottom  feeders?  Or  had  they  been 
fished  for  so  constantly  that  they  could 
no  longer  be  enticed  by  artificial  flies 
as  ordinarily  presented? 

If  one  visits  a  stream  that  has  been 
fished  constantly  with  wet  flies,  but  on 
whose  surface  a  dry-fly  has  seldom  been 

[123] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

seen,  again  in  the  judgment  of  the  au- 
thor the  one  best  lure  is  the  floating 
fly.  One  of  my  friends,  whose  name  is 
a  household  word  among  men  fond  of 
the  great  out-doors,  recently  stated  that 
a  stream  which  flows  through  the  lands 
on  which  his  summer  home  is  situated 
had  been,  in  his  opinion,  practically 
"fished  out"  for  several  years.  "Yet 
one  day  last  summer,"  he  said,  "two 
dry-fly  anglers  came  up  from  New 
York.  I  went  to  the  stream  to  watch 
them.  They  were  taking  trout  at  al- 
most every  cast  and  returning  them 
to  the  stream."  I  predict  that  ere 
long  this  gentleman  will  become  a  dry- 
fly  enthusiast,  if  he  has  not  already 
reached  that  stage. 

Mr.  Halford  says  in  his  "Dry-Fly 
Fishing  in  Theory  and  Practice":  "In 
Derbyshire,  a  few  years  back,  every 
one  used  two,  and  many  three,  four,  or 

[124] 


Unjust  Suspicions  of  Fraud 

even  more  flies;  every  one  fished  down- 
stream, and  fished  the  water.  Now 
hosts  of  anglers  have  invaded  the  dis- 
trict, the  trout  and  grayling  are  as  shy 
and  wary  as  any  in  the  country,  and 
what  is  the  result?  Day  after  day,  and 
year  after  year,  more  of  the  successful 
anglers  in  the  district  fish  up-stream 
with  floating  flies  and  over  rising  fish 
only,  and  it  is  only  on  occasional  blus- 
tering days  that  one  of  the  old  school 
succeeds  in  getting  a  moderate  bag. 
The  same  tale  can  be  told  of  all  parts 
of  the  country,  where  the  local  anglers, 
taught  from  childhood  to  fish  with  sunk 
fly,  laugh  at  the  possibility  of  a  bag 
being  made  with  the  dry-fly.  An  ex- 
ample of  this:  Not  many  years  ago, 
in  Dorchester,  one  of  the  best  dry-fly 
fishermen  of  the  day  was  seriously  sus- 
pected, and  even  accused,  of  not  fish- 
ing fair,  because  he  succeeded  in  killing 

[125] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

great  numbers  of  the  largest  fish  on 
days  when  the  natives  with  wet  fly 
could  do  no  good  at  all.  At  length 
his  proceedings  were  quietly  but  thor- 
oughly watched  by  one  of  the  local 
talent,  with  the  result  that  he  who 
went  to  discover  a  fraud  found  that  he 
had  been  for  years  following  a  mistaken 
policy.  .  .  .  Ever  after  he  forswore 
the  wet  fly,  and  himself  was  able  in 
turn  to  teach  and  convert  others  to  the 
more  modern  and  more  successful 
school  of  angling.  From  north  and 
south,  from  east  and  west,  in  later  times 
fly-fishermen  came  to  Winchester,  where 
•they  saw,  learned  and  conquered  the  use 
of  the  floating  fly  ...  they  carried  the 
information  all  over  the  country,  until 
at  length  the  spread  of  dry-fly  fishing 
has  become  something  dreadful  to  con- 
template, because  in  the  rivers  where 
it  is  practised  the  fish  never  get  a  rest, 

[126] 


Tempting  Fish  to  Their  Ruin 

but  day  after  day,  week  after  week,  and 
month  after  month,  are  continually  and 
continuously  tempted  to  their  destruc- 
tion." 


[127] 


CHAPTER  XII 


Fine  and  Far-Off  Casting  and  the 
Value  of  Close  Fishing  when 
Throwing  a  Fly  Up-Stream 


IT  was  Charles  Cotton,  I  think,  who 
first  advised  "fine  and  far-off" 
casting. 

A  fine  and  far-off  cast  is  a  good  thing 
to  use  occasionally;  and  it  is  always 
of  great  value  to  anglers  to  possess  the 
ability  to  make  a  long  cast  when  neces- 
sary. Fishermen  who  have  never  stood 
upon  a  platform  in  a  tournament  are 
rather  prone,  at  times,  to  belittle  the 
attainments  of  a  tournament  caster, 
and  to  say  emphatically  that  "tourna- 
ment casting  is  not  angling."  That  is 
right;  it  is  not,  but  it  is  a  legitimate 
and  valuable  part  of  the  angling  game, 

[128] 


Value  of  Tournament  Work 

and  while  all  good  anglers  are  not  good 
tournament  casters,  yet  nearly  all  the 
good  tournament  casters  of  to-day  are 
good  anglers.  The  very  worst  that  can 
happen  to  an  angler  who  goes  upon  a 
tournament  platform,  and  is  success- 
ful, is  to  learn  how  to  cast  a  long  line. 
What  fly-fisherman  would  not  like  to 
possess  the  ability  to  make  a  long  cast 
when  he  saw  near  the  opposite  bank  of 
a  stream  a  good  rise  which  he  could 
reach  in  no  other  way  than  by  casting 
his  fly  seventy  or  eighty  feet  or  more? 
The  tournament  casters  also  learn 
much  that  is  not  generally  learned  in 
other  ways  about  tackle,  about  the  ac- 
tion of  rods,  the  good  and  poor  quali- 
ties of  various  lines,  and  also  learn  to 
handle  rod  and  line  in  the  manner  of 
an  expert. 

There  is  also  another  great  advan- 
tage to  the  angler  who  is  a  proficient 

[129] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

long-distance  caster;  a  man  of  medium 
ability  in  handling  a  rod,  by  practice 
can  learn  to  put  out  a  line  eighty  or 
eighty-five  feet  with  a  five-ounce  rod, 
and  seventy-five  to  eighty  feet  with  a 
four-ounce  rod.  For  somewhat  the 
same  reason  that  an  athlete  who  can 
lift  a  one-hundred-pound  weight  with 
one  hand  can  easily  juggle  a  weight 
of  ten  pounds  and  do  almost  anything 
he  pleases  with  it,  so  an  angler  who  can 
cast  eighty  or  eight-five  feet,  makes 
the  shorter  casts  necessary  on  the 
streams  with  remarkable  ease  and 
skill;  casting  these  distances  without 
effort,  he  can  devote  all  his  attention 
to  placing  his  fly  accurately  and  deli- 
cately. Ideas  frequently  held  by  those 
who  are  not  accustomed  to  taking  part 
in  tournaments  as  to  the  "freak"  tackle 
used  by  distance  casters  are  generally 
erroneous.  It  is  true  that  the  typical 

[130] 


Fishing  Conditions  Copied 

heavy  single-handed  rod  used  in  the  un- 
limited weight  class  is  a  very  clumsy 
weapon,  and,  in  the  author's  opinion, 
of  little  use,  if  any,  in  actual  fishing. 
But  the  lighter  tournament  rods,  five 
and  three-fourth  and  four  and  three- 
fourth  ounces  in  weight  respectively, 
are  usually  the  rods  most  liked  by  their 
owners  for  use  on  the  streams;  and  in 
the  case  of  the  author,  at  least,  who 
has  had  a  somewhat  limited  experience 
in  tournament  work,  the  beautiful  Eng- 
lish lines  used  could  not  be  better  suited 
to  fishing  with  the  dry-fly.  Each  year 
the  managers  of  tournaments  are  seek- 
ing more  and  more  to  copy  actual  fish- 
ing conditions,  both  in  tackle  and  in 
holding  accuracy  and  delicacy  contests. 
It  is  not  the  object  of  these  remarks, 
however,  to  advocate  long-distance 
casting  on  the  streams.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  writer  is  much  in  favor  of 

[131] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

the  idea  of  fishing  as  near  the  trout  as 
possible.  This  method  has  manifold 
advantages.  First,  if  one  is  close  to  a 
trout  he  may  use  a  short  cast,  and 
with  little  line  out  the  fly  may  be 
placed  on  the  water  with  the  greatest 
accuracy  and  delicacy.  It  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  the  up-stream  fisherman 
makes  much  capital  of  the  fact  that 
he  approaches  the  fish  from  behind, 
as  trout  always  lie  with  their  heads 
up-stream.  Where  a  short  cast  is 
made  the  fly  can  be  thrown  without 
placing  much  of  the  line  and  leader  on 
the  water.  The  current  is  constantly 
bringing  the  floating  fly  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  angler.  As  it  comes  down- 
stream the  angler  can  take  care  of 
much  of  the  slack  by  merely  lifting  the 
point  of  the  rod;  the  remaining  slack 
can  be  easily  stripped  in  by  the  left 
hand.  When  the  trout  rises  the  an- 

[132] 


Using  a  Short-Line  Cast 

gler  has  perfect  control  of  the  line  when 
fishing  close,  the  fish  is  hooked  more 
certainly  than  with  a  long  line  out, 
and  the  control  over  the  fish  is  imme- 
diate. If  the  surface  of  the  water  is 
broken  or  ruffled,  either  by  a  breeze 
or  because  the  stream  is  running  swiftly 
over  a  rough  bottom,  an  extremely 
short  line  should  be  used.  As  the 
water  gets  smoother  and  the  current 
less  powerful  a  longer  cast  may  become 
necessary,  and  when  fishing  a  pool  with 
a  smooth,  placid  surface  the  angler 
should  keep  much  farther  away  from 
the  fish.  But  in  this  case  no  unusual 
difficulties  are  presented,  for  the  line 
moving  slowly  in  the  gentle  current 
may  be  stripped  in  without  difficulty, 
and  be  under  the  control  of  the  angler 
at  all  times. 

A  most  valuable  lesson  for  a  trout 
fisherman  to  learn  is  what  we  may  call 

[133] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

unobtrusiveness,  and  also  deliberative- 
ness  of  movement.  A  trout  is  fright- 
ened by  any  sudden,  quick  movements 
that  may  attract  its  eye  or  by  unusual 
disturbances  of  the  water.  Every  step 
up-stream,  when  in  promising  water, 
should  be  taken  carefully  and  deliber- 
ately, and  all  motions  made  by  the 
angler  should  be  as  gentle  and  incon- 
spicuous as  possible.  I  recognize  the 
fact  that  there  are  many  who  visit  the 
trout  streams  who  believe  that  the 
proper  way  to  fish  is  to  go  over  as 
much  of  the  length  of  the  stream  as 
possible  in  a  day,  neglecting  all  except- 
ing particularly  good  spots,  and  mak- 
ing only  a  few  casts  over  each  of  these. 
Sometimes  several  miles  of  stream  are 
covered  by  them  in  a  few  hours.  Is  it 
not  a  better  method  to  take  one's  time, 
fish  all  good  spots  carefully  and  thor- 
oughly, and  pay  little  attention  to  the 

[134] 


Hurrying  a  Fishing  Fault 

distance  covered  in  the  course  of  the 
day?  The  author  agrees  thoroughly 
with  Mr.  Dewar  when  he  says  that 
"there  is  no  surer  sign  of  an  unaccom- 
plished dry-fly  fisherman  than  hurry- 
ing. A  good  fisherman  will  not  hesi- 
tate to  stay  an  hour  if  he  sees  a  good 
chance  of  deceiving  a  heavy  trout 
which  is  feeding  well." 

A  short  time  ago  the  idea  of  fishing 
a  pool  in  the  manner  suggested  in 
Chapter  VI  was  somewhat  severely 
criticised  by  a  veteran  New  York  an- 
gler, who  seemed  to  object  to  "laying 
out  a  trout  pool  as  one  would  lay  out 
a  checker  board."  At  the  same  time, 
I  gained  an  impression  from  his  re- 
marks that  he  did  not  think  that  the 
dry-fly  could  be  successful  on  Ameri- 
can streams  "because  it  was  invented 
for  use  on  the  placid  English  chalk 
streams."  A  logical  idea! 

[135] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  "mathema- 
tical pool"  was  used  to  express,  in  the 
simplest  manner  possible,  two  ideas: 
First,  in  pool  fishing,  to  cover  all  good 
water  carefully;  second,  always  to  cast 
so  that  the  fly  would  fall  in  the  water 
nearest  to  the  angler  first,  one  cast 
succeeding  another  in  such  a  way  that 
no  good  unfished  water  would  be  dis- 
turbed. It  is  a  question  whether  the 
critic  referred  to  objected  to  the  idea 
of  covering  all  good  water,  or  to  the 
measure  suggested  to  prevent  disturb- 
ing good  unfished  water;  or  possibly 
he  did  not  grasp  the  idea  of  the  math- 
ematical pool  at  all.  The  question  of 
the  adaptability  of  the  dry-fly  to  many 
American  streams  is  beyond  argument; 
for  many  years  it  has  been  used  upon 
them  with  great  success.  The  editor 
of  the  Fishing  Gazette,  of  London,  in 
speaking  of  the  dry-fly  on  American 

[136] 


A  Challenge  to  the  AngUr 

waters,  said  last  March:  "The  old 
stagers  pooh-pooh  it,  as  many  still  do 
here,  but  it  makes  way  for  itself  be- 
cause it  appeals  to,  as  well  as  chal- 
lenges, the  angler." 


[137] 


CHAPTER  XIII 


The  Advantages  of  Stalking  a 
Trout  from  Behind,  and  Ex- 
amples of  Good  and  Bad  Gen- 
eralship 


ATER  streams  have  been  fished 
for  years,  and  the  trout  in  them 
are  apparently  scarce,  very  shy, 
and  extremely  difficult  to  catch,  it  is 
customary,  to  refer  to  their  inhabitants 
as  "educated  trout."  In  many  of  the 
well-known  New  York  streams,  for  in- 
stance, the  trout  are  supposed  to  be 
educated  to  a  high  degree.  They  can 
not  be  enticed  by  the  ordinary  methods 
of  the  wet  fly  fisherman,  especially  in 
the  summer  season,  though  it  is  in  these 
very  streams  that  the  expert  with  the 
floating  fly  loves  to  match  his  skill 

[138] 


Position  in  Stream  Tactics 

against  the  cunning  of  the  trout.  The 
"education"  theory  has  been  accepted 
by  nearly  all  angling  writers,  and  few 
have  questioned  it.  But  can  not  this 
theory  be  used  at  times  to  "cover  a 
multitude  of  sins"  on  the  part  of  the 
angler,  such  as  gross  carelessness  in 
showing  himself  to  the  fish,  or  present- 
ing the  fly  in  an  unnatural  or  slovenly 
manner? 

While  meditating  upon  this  subject 
one  winter  evening,  there  flashed  across 
my  mind  the  words  "the  point  of  van- 
tage." Now,  this  is  a  very  common 
expression,  used  almost  daily,  and  it 
has  probably  been  used  times  without 
number  by  fishermen.  But  the  thought 
that  came  to  me  in  this  connection  was 
that  there  is  one  "point  of  vantage" 
for  the  angler  in  the  case  of  nearly 
every  trout  which  he  is  endeavoring  to 
raise  to  the  fly,  and  that  an  angler 

[139] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

making  thorough  and  systematic  study 
of  the  best  possible  position  in  each  and 
every  case  would  prove  himself  in  the 
long  run  to  be  a  fly-fisherman  of  a  rare 
and  superior  type.  In  stream  tactics 
what  can  be  of  more  importance  than 
the  study  of  position?  And  yet  how 
many  times  during  the  course  of  a 
day's  fishing  is  even  a  fairly  experi- 
enced angler  or  his  shadow,  or  his  rod 
or  its  shadow,  plainly  seen  by  the  trout 
when  he  flatters  himself  that  the  fish 
is  in  complete  ignorance  of  his  pres- 
ence? Or  how  often  is  an  angler,  even 
though  his  presence  be  unknown  to  the 
fish,  in  the  very  best  possible  position 
—the  position  that  we  have  referred  to 
as  "the  point  of  vantage"?  It  is  plain 
that  this  point  is  the  one  spot  where 
the  angler  is  as  near  the  trout  as  it  is 
possible  to  be  without  coming  within 
range  of  its  keen  sight. 

[140] 


Importance  of  Invisibility 

As  boys,  we  were  all  taught  the  great 
importance  of  keeping  out  of  sight  of 
the  trout.  When  there  were  bushes  be- 
side the  stream,  we  hid  behind  them  as 
much  as  possible.  When  fishing  the 
meadow  brooks,  we  kept  far  away  from 
the  banks,  many  times  crouching  down 
or  getting  on  our  knees  when  casting 
bait  or  fly  into  the  favorite  hiding  places 
of  the  trout.  But  now,  as  men,  we  are 
perhaps  fishing  on  larger  streams,  and 
as  we  cast  our  floating  fly  up-stream 
we  are  wading.  It  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  not  to  be  seen  by  the  fish 
as  we  carefully  approach  it  from  be- 
hind, and  yet  it  is  essential  that  we 
should  use  no  longer  line  than  is  ab- 
solutely necessary.  The  shorter  the 
line  the  more  accurately  and  delicately 
we  can  place  the  fly,  and  we  have 
learned  that  there  is  more  certainty  of 
hooking  the  rising  fish,  and  of  control- 

[141] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

ling  it  when  hooked,  with  the  shortest 
possible  length  of  line  out.  What  rare 
judgment  would  he  have  who  always 
could  place  himself  in  that  one  spot 
that  marked  the  limit  of  invisibility, 
and  yet  was  the  nearest  possible  to  the 
fish! 

While  trout  have  other  senses,  yet 
the  sense  of  sight  is  the  only  one  to 
which  it  is  necessary  for  the  careful  an- 
gler to  give  particular  heed.  There- 
fore, he  must  know  something  about 
the  limit  of  a  trout's  vision  before  he 
can  judge  correctly  as  to  whether  the 
fish  can  see  him.  All  trout  lie  with 
their  heads  up-stream,  or  at  least  fac- 
ing the  flow  of  the  current;  in  the  case 
of  deflected  currents,  they  face  these 
currents.  Drawing  an  imaginary  circle 
around  a  trout,  it  can  see  objects 
within  that  portion  of  the  circle  in 
front  and  on  either  side,  covering  about 

[142] 


Angles  of  a  Trout's  Vision 

300  degrees;  this  refers  to  objects  on 
the  horizontal  plane  of  the  eye  of  the 
fish.  There  will  remain  then  an  arc 
of  invisibility  behind  the  trout  of  about 
60  degrees. 


Fio.  9 

The  eyes  of  the  trout  are  at  T;  A  T  B  and  B  T  C  are  angles  of  30  de- 
grees each.  A  B  C  is  an  arc  of  60  degrees  and  is  the  zone  of  invisibility 
of  objects  on  the  same  horizontal  plane  as  the  trout. 


When  the  angler  is  wading,  naturally 
his  rod  and  the  upper  part  of  his  body 
are  above  the  horizontal  plane  of  the 
trout,  and  they  may  come  within  the 
vision  of  the  fish  at  a  certain  point 

[143] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

above  and  behind  it.  In  discussing 
these  questions,  however,  the  laws  of 
refraction  would  have  to  be  gone  into 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  this  work. 
When  the  surface  of  the  water  is  nat- 
urally rough,  or  is  ruffled  by  a  breeze, 
the  angler  need  not  concern  himself  so 
much  about  keeping  out  of  sight;  when 
behind  the  fish  under  these  conditions 
a  short  line  may  be  used,  and  the  "fine 
and  far  off"  casting  be  left  for  the  still, 
clear  pools  with  glassy  surface. 

What  a  never-ending  study  does  this 
question  of  exact  position — the  one 
point  of  vantage — under  ever-varying 
conditions,  offer  to  the  thoughtful  dry- 
fly  angler! 

This  thought  has  become  insepar- 
ably connected  in  my  mind  with  many 
angling  failures  of  the  past — days  of 
disappointment  because  at  times  splen- 
did pools  had  failed  to  produce  antici- 

[144] 


Angling  Failures  Explained 

pated  results,  though  most  carefully 
fished,  as  I  thought  at  the  time.  In 
my  imagination  I  have  gone  back  to 
some  of  these  pools  and  fished  them 
over  again.  How  often  in  the  days 
of  the  past  had  failures  been  due,  not 
so  much  to  lack  of  knowledge  of  trout 
habits,  not  to  bungling  casting,  but  to 
poor  generalship  in  choosing  position? 
There  are  times  when  there  are  ob- 
stacles in  the  way  that  make  it  im- 
possible to  place  one's  self  in  the  best 
tactical  position;  but  there  are  others 
when  this  position  is  not  taken  simply 
through  ignorance,  lack  of  study  of  the 
situation,  carelessness  of  methods,  in- 
difference, or — let  us  not  deceive  our- 
selves— sheer  indolence  or  lack  of  am- 
bition. 

Here  is  a  case  in  point:  One  day  in 
the  last  week  in  May,  not  many  years 
ago,  I  was  wading  a  stream  in  Sullivan 

[145] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

County  not  generally  known  by  New 
York  anglers,  when  I  came  to  a  smooth, 
flat  pool,  generally  shallow,  and  not 
promising  any  favorable  results,  except 
possibly  in  one  spot.  A  little  more 
than  half-way  up  the  pool  near  the 
bank  to  my  right,  was  a  fairly  large 
rock,  and  the  water  in  front  of  it  was 
at  least  three  or  four  feet  deep.  Not 
wishing  to  waste  any  time  on  the  un- 
promising water,  I  immediately  waded 
to  the  point  0,  in  Fig.  10,  which  is  a 
very  correct  diagram  of  this  pool.  My 
position  was  about  twenty-five  feet 
below  the  rock  R,  where  I  thought  a 
trout  should  be.  The  little  whirling 
dun  lighted  gently,  with  wings  upright 
at  C.  When  it  had  floated  down  to  a 
point  opposite  the  centre  of  the  rock, 
I  was  not  much  surprised  to  see  a  very 
fair  trout  rise  to  the  fly.  The  fish 
missed  and  was  frightened,  so  I  went 

[146] 


A  Good  Tactical  Position 

on  up-stream,  marking  the  spot,  how- 
ever, for  another  try  in  the  afternoon, 
The  tactical  position  0  was  perfect. 


Fig.  10 


When  on  my  way  homeward  this 
pool  was  reached  as  the  evening  shad- 
ows were  falling.  I  had  sufficient  in- 

[147] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

telligence  to  know  that  if  I  wanted 
this  fish  badly  I  should  go  below  the 
tail  of  the  pool  and  wade  carefully  up 
to  the  point  0,  from  which  I  had  cast 
in  the  morning.  But,  instead,  I  con- 
tented myself  by  walking  down  the 
other  side  of  the  pool,  at  a  good  dis- 
tance from  the  bank,  and  took  a  posi- 
tion at  D.  There  was  not  a  bright  sky 
behind  me,  the  sun  had  set,  daylight 
was  fast  disappearing,  and  I  was  fully 
sixty  feet  from  the  fish.  But  when  the 
rod  was  raised  for  the  first  false  cast, 
away  went  the  trout  like  a  scared  cat. 
This  incident  shows  at  what  an  angle, 
and  at  what  a  distance,  even  in  a  fail- 
ing light,  a  trout  is  able  to  see  an  angler 
or  his  rod. 

Now  will  be  related  an  example  of 
bad  judgment,  aided  by  a  penchant 
possessed  by  the  author  at  times  to  do 
things  with  the  least  amount  of  labor 

[148] 


Some  Angling  Anticipations 

possible,  as  I  discovered  many  months 
afterward  through  the  kind  offices  of 
Mr.  La  Branche.  On  August  29,  1911, 
I  was  fishing  on  that  delightful  stream, 
the  Willowemoc,  having  gone  to  De 
Bruce  to  put  in  the  last  three  days  of 
the  season.  In  the  afternoon  I  came 
to  a  very  beautiful  pool — beautiful  in 
every  way,  but  especially  so  from  the 
angler's  view-point.  The  water  was 
dark  and  deep,  and  on  the  eastern 
shore  flowed  rather  swiftly  by  the  edge 
of  a  large  rock  on  the  bank.  "Here  is 
where  I  am  sure  to  take  a  trout  worth 
having,"  I  thought,  as  I  began  to  dry 
my  favorite  whirling  dun.  All  angling 
instincts,  natural  and  acquired,  told  me 
that  there  should  be  large  trout  in  this 
pool.  The  place  where  I  expected  fully 
to  see  the  record  trout  rise  was  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  spot  indicated  by 
the  letter  A,  opposite  the  large  rock 

[1491 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

at  the  right  in  Fig.  11.  I  happened  to 
be  in  fine  form  that  day,  and  from  early 
morning  my  nerves  had  seemed  to  be 
at  just  the  right  tension  to  enable  me 
to  place  the  fly  accurately  and  deli- 
cately, while  in  difficult  places  I  had 
been  fortunate  enough  to  make  many 
skilful  casts  that  had  done  away  al- 
most completely  with  that  bane  of  all 
dry-fly  anglers,  the  drag.  The  water 
was  so  deep  at  the  lower  end  of  the 
pool  and  up  to  within  a  few  feet  of 
the  left  bank,  that  in  the  various  posi- 
tions indicated  by  0  I  had  entered  the 
pool  as  far  as  the  length  of  my  waders 
would  allow  me  to  go,  while  before 
reaching  these  positions  I  had  fished 
thoroughly  other  portions  of  the  pool 
below;  yet  I  regarded  that  portion  of 
the  pool  indicated  in  a  general  way  by 
C,  C,  C,  C,  as  the  very  cream  of  the 
water.  The  casts  were  unusually  long, 

[150] 


Good  Casting — Poor  Fishing 

but  nearly  always  the  fly  performed  ad- 
mirably; as  an  exhibition  of  casting  I 
could  not  find  much  room  for  criticism, 


Fig.  11 

but  I  now  look  back  upon  it  as  a  poor 
exhibition  of  fishing. 

Soon  another  angler  appeared,  and, 
much  to  my  surprise,  told  me  that  it 

[151] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

was  useless  to  "waste  time  on  this 
pool,"  as  trout  were  never  caught 
there.  Wet  fly  fishermen  often  say  this 
of  good  pools. 

However,  I  did  not  believe  him,  and 
the  whirling  dun  continued  floating 
down  most  enticingly. 

Then  another  angler  came  along,  and, 
stopping  to  tell  me  the  same  thing,  hur- 
ried up-stream. 

Some  time  afterward,  completely 
baffled,  I  followed  in  the  steps  of  the 
others,  and  left  this  most  promising 
looking  pool  a  sadder  but  not  a  wiser 
man.  Not  a  sign  of  good  fish  had  I 
seen.  There  were  tall  trees  behind  me, 
and  heavy  clouds  in  the  sky,  and  both 
weather  and  water  conditions  were 
such  that  it  did  not  once  occur  to  me 
that  I  or  my  rod  might  possibly  have 
been  seen  by  fish  feeding  by  the  op- 
posite bank.  Nor  did  a  realization,  or 

[152] 


Help  in  Solving  a  Problem 

even  a  suspicion,  of  this  come  to  my 
mind  until  early  in  the  following  Feb- 
ruary. All  anglers  have  a  habit  of 
thinking  over  during  the  winter  months 
successes  and  defeats  of  the  previous 
season  or  seasons.  Many  times  my 
imagination  had  taken  me  back  to  this 
pool,  and  sometimes  I  had  exclaimed: 
"Can  it  be  possible  that  the  other 
anglers  were  right  when  they  said 
that  there  were  no  fish  there?  If  so, 
why  should  trout  shun  so  beautiful  a 
pool?" 

One  morning,  months  after,  I  hap- 
pened to  be  on  a  train  with  Mr.  La 
Branche,  who  has  spent  many  days  on 
the  Willowemoc,  and  as  always  when 
we  meet,  we  began  "talking  fish."  I 
told  him  of  the  experience  related 
above,  described  the  pool,  drew  a  dia- 
gram of  it,  learned  that  he  was  thor- 
oughly familiar  with  every  inch  of  this 

[153] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

water,  and,  furthermore,  that  he  had 
taken  several  large  trout  from  the 
exact  places  that  I  had  been  casting 
over  with  so  much  care,  zeal,  and  ex- 
pectancy. 

But  his  points  of  vantage  had  been 
the  places  marked  X,  X,  X  in  the  dia- 
gram, almost  directly  below  the  fish 
and  near  the  other  bank. 

"Why  did  you  not  fish  from  there?" 
he  asked. 

"Because,  on  account  of  the  depth 
of  the  water  and  the  strength  of  the 
current  below  the  pool,  I  did  not  think 
one  could  get  there." 

"No,"  he  replied,  "it  was  because 
you  wanted  to  take  things  too  easily." 

"Then,"  I  said,  "I  believe  there  is 
no  question  but  that  at  my  position  0 
I  may  have  been  seen  by  the  fish  on 
the  other  side  of  the  stream." 

And  that  may  be  the  complete  ex- 

[154] 


Reasoning,  Right  and  Wrong 

planation  of  the  apparent  mystery;  for 
it  was  a  mystery  that  I  could  not  get  a 
rise.  I  had  been  entirely  right  about 
its  being  a  splendid  trout  pool,  and  the 
other  men  had  been  wrong,  and  I  had 
thought  that  my  position  was  good. 
But  this  thought  was  possibly  an  error 
fatal  to  success.  There  is  little  doubt 
that  if  it  had  been  good,  easy  going 
across  the  stream  at  the  lower  end  of 
the  pool  I  should  naturally  at  first 
have  taken  a  position  near  the  right 
bank  and  below  the  trout;  but  to 
have  gotten  over  to  the  proper  place 
from  which  to  cast  would  have  meant 
a  considerable  walk  down-stream,  fol- 
lowed by  wading  over  difficult  places 
up-stream. 

Whether  or  not  I  should  have  been 
more  successful  in  this  other  position, 
the  incident  illustrates  the  great  im- 
portance of  taking  very  particular 

[155] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

pains  to  select  carefully  the  best  pos- 
sible point  of  vantage  from  which  to 
cast,  even  if  it  takes  some  extra  effort 
to  do  so. 


[156] 


CHAPTER  XIV 


Two  Old  Trout  of  the  Pools,  and 
the  Little  Dry-Fly  that  Fi- 
nally Accomplished  Their  Ruin 


THE  author's  early  experiences 
with  the  floating  fly  were 
neither  fruitful  nor  encourag- 
ing; but  he  fully  realizes  that  this 
lack  of  success  was  entirely  his  own 
fault,  and  was  due  both  to  a  lack  of 
knowledge  of  dry-fly  methods  and  to 
an  insufficiently  aroused  interest  in 
them.  One  day  several  years  ago  he 
saw  in  a  tackle  shop  some  flies  differ- 
ent from  any  in  his  fly -books,  and  hav- 
ing been  told  that  they  were  the  Eng- 
lish floating  flies,  laid  in  a  small  stock 
of  them,  while  the  tackle-dealer  briefly 
explained  how  they  were  used.  After- 

[157] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

ward  these  flies  were  taken  on  several 
trips,  but  were  unthought  of  and  un- 
used. One  day  he  met  an  angler  who 
had  used  the  dry-fly  method  of  fishing 
and  who  seemed  to  be  enthusiastic 
about  it.  The  author  made  up  his 
mind  that  he  would  try  the  floating 
fly  at  the  very  next  opportunity  that 
presented  itself.  But  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  he  had  been  a  con- 
firmed wet  fly  fisherman  for  more  than 
thirty  years,  and  while  he  had  ad- 
vanced in  the  wet  fly  art  so  far  as  to 
use  only  a  single  small  fly,  and  leaders 
fully  as  fine  as  those  made  for  dry-fly 
angling,  yet  when  he  reached  a  stream 
it  was  natural  for  him  to  think  of  the 
lures  that  had  been  his  companions 
since  boyhood  and  not  to  attempt  to 
branch  out  into  new  fields. 

But  one  May  day,  four  or  five  years 
ago,  when  on  a  week's  end  fishing  trip, 
[158] 


A  Contumacious  Old  Trout 

he  was  driven  to  a  point  verging  upon 
exasperation  by  a  large  trout  which 
persisted  in  rising  leisurely  from  a  hole 
beside  an  old  stump  in  a  pool  that  had 
been  a  favorite  of  the  author's  for 
several  years.  When  its  first  rise  was 
seen  the  angler  placed  over  it  one  of 
his  most  attractive  wet  flies  with  a 
feeling  of  confidence  that  the  trout 
could  not  resist  it.  But  resist  it  he 
did,  not  only  on  the  first  cast,  but  on 
succeeding  casts.  Then  the  pool  was 
rested,  and  another  favorite  fly  was 
tried  with  the  same  result.  The  trout 
was  still  rising  occasionally,  but  paid 
no  attention  to  the  artificial  lure;  once 
it  arose  just  as  the  imitation  touched 
the  water  and  within  a  few  inches 
of  it,  apparently  entirely  unconcerned 
about  the  wiles  of  the  angler  attempt- 
ing to  lure  it  to  destruction.  Again 
the  pool  was  rested  and  the  trout 

[159] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

soon  attacked  with  another  pattern. 
It  happened  that  this  was  not  the 
first  day  that  the  same  tactics  had 
been  tried  both  by  the  writer  and  his 
friends,  and  this  particular  trout  had 
gained  a  well-deserved  reputation.  To 
make  the  matter  worse,  the  author,  in 
a  fit  of  vainglorious  boasting,  had  made 
arrangements  at  the  inn  that  morning 
to  have  this  fish  cooked  for  his  dinner 
that  very  evening. 

Finally,  having  reached  a  point  bor- 
dering upon  total  discouragement,  the 
angler  sat  down  to  take  a  rest  and  to 
think  things  over.  In  a  few  minutes 
there  was  a  "plop,"  and  another  big 
swirl  by  the  stump;  the  trout  was  still 
doing  business  at  the  same  old  stand, 
but  the  angler  had  apparently  closed 
up  shop  and  ceased  to  take  interest  in 
the  affairs  going  on  about  him. 

But  in  a  moment  he  sat  erect,  with 

[160] 


Floating  Deception  Wins 

the  appearance  of  a  man  who  had 
solved  a  great  and  weighty  problem. 
An  idea  had  suddenly  flashed  through 
his  mind!  A  tiny  japanned  vest-pocket 
eyed-fly  box  lay  open  before  him,  and 
he  was  gazing  intently  at  its  long  neg- 
lected contents.  There  were  within 
this  box  little  whirling  duns,  Wick- 
ham's  fancies,  Jenny  spinners,  black 
gnats  and  coachmen — all  beautifully 
tied  English  floating  flies.  He  selected 
a  whirling  dun,  which  has  ever  since 
been  one  of  his  favorite  lures.  It  was 
carefully  knotted  to  the  filmy  leader, 
and  a  moment  after  the,  next  rise  of  the 
fish  it  was  floating  in  the  centre  of  the 
swirl  with  wings  erect.  Then  some- 
thing took  place  that  had  not  happened 
before  in  this  spot  that  season,  so  far 
as  records  showed;  the  old  trout  had 
sucked  in  the  little  dun,  apparently 
without  the  slightest  suspicion  that  it 

[161] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

was  not  a  natural  insect,  and  the  hook 
was  firmly  imbedded  in  its  mouth. 

This  should  have  been  a  lesson  to  me, 
but  I  must  confess  that  it  was  not. 
True,  I  often  thought  of  this  episode 
and  admitted  that  the  dry-fly  on  that 
occasion  had  saved  the  day;  further- 
more, I  listened  more  attentively  when 
anglers  spoke  of  the  floating  lure;  but 
the  microbe  of  enthusiasm  had  not  as 
yet  reached  its  mark. 

The  following  spring  I  went  to  the 
same  stream  and  fully  intended  to 
give  the  dry-fly  a  thorough  try-out. 
But  when  the  opening  day  of  the  sea- 
son dawned,  the  morning  after  my  ar- 
rival, the  habits  of  a  lifetime  had  full 
possession  of  me,  and  the  dry-flies  were 
forgotten.  This  was  in  the  middle  of 
April.  After  returning  from  this  trip, 
there  came  a  feeling  of  regret  that  I 
had  not  spent  at  least  a  part  of  the 

[162] 


Fooling  Another  Foxy  Fish 

time  fishing  with  the  floating  lure,  and 
so  I  hurried  back  to  the  stream  early 
in  May,  fully  intending  that  this  trip 
should  be  devoted  exclusively  to  prac- 
tice with  the  dry-fly.  The  results 
were  neither  good  nor  bad;  the  fish- 
ing seemed  to  be  poor  that  week,  and 
I  used  the  wet  fly  and  the  dry-fly  al- 
ternately, fortune  favoring  one  about 
as  much  as  the  other.  I  performed 
one  surprising  feat,  however,  with  the 
floating  fly  that  I  have  always  at- 
tributed to  amazing  good  luck  rather 
than  to  particularly  good  management. 
It  was  well  known  to  local  and  visiting 
anglers  that  a  large  trout  occupied  an 
almost  impregnable  position  in  the 
upper  part  of  a  long  pool  above  a  dam, 
and  it  had  been  considered  impossible 
to  reach  it  with  any  known  lure,  with- 
out giving  it  previous  warning  of  dan- 
ger. It  could  not  be  cast  for  from 

[163] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

below,  and  rocks  and  bushes  made  it 
impossible  to  assail  it  from  either  side; 
while  above,  a  barrier  of  rocks  was 
made  higher  by  an  old  pine  tree  that 
had  fallen  across  the  stream.  Many 
anglers  had  schemed  to  take  this 
trout,  but  none  had  succeeded  in  mak- 
ing even  a  good  attempt  at  doing  so. 
To  make  a  long  story  short,  I  cast  a 
fly  from  above  the  fallen  pine  tree  and 
over  it,  without  even  seeing  the  water 
in  which  the  fish  lay.  The  floating  fly 
was  so  cast  that  it  must  have  drifted 
down  over  the  trout;  in  an  instant  I 
either  heard,  or  imagined  that  I  heard 
the  "plop"  of  a  rising  fish,  and  we 
were  at  once  engaged  in  a  struggle, 
neither  of  us  in  sight  of  the  other. 
How  it  was  possible  from  that  posi- 
tion to  "play"  this  trout  to  a  stand- 
still without  getting  hopelessly  tan- 
gled I  did  not  know;  but  in  a  short 

[164] 


Fast-Growing  Enthusiasm 

time  it  showed  signs  of  weakening, 
and  I  laid  my  rod  on  the  top  of  the 
barrier  formed  by  the  rocks  and  the 
pine  tree,  clambered  over  as  fast  as  I 
could,  picked  up  the  rod  again,  and 
the  fish  was  soon  in  the  net. 

By  this  time  I  had  begun  to  be  some- 
what accustomed  to  the  use  of  the  dry- 
fly,  but  still  lacked  the  confidence  in 
myself  necessary  to  handle  it  to  the 
best  advantage.  The  following  winter 
I  most  fortunately  came  across  Mr. 
Halford's  early  books  and  read  them 
greedily.  The  naturalness  of  dry-fly 
methods  as  described  by  him  was  ab- 
solutely convincing,  and  I  became  en- 
thusiastic over  what  I  then  began  to 
consider  the  most  artistic  and  beauti- 
ful of  all  methods  of  angling.  After- 
ward I  had  the  great  good  fortune  to 
meet  some  of  our  dry-fly  experts,  and 
now  feel  competent  to  go  upon  the 

[165] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

streams  alone  and — at  least  learn  new 
things  about  this  delightful  art. 

The  incidents  related  have  not  been 
written  so  much  with  the  idea  of  en- 
tertaining the  reader,  as  with  the  hope 
that  they  will  point  a  moral  to  the  be- 
ginner with  the  dry-fly,  with  the  re- 
sult that  he  will  start  in  at  once  to 
master  dry-fly  fishing  instead  of  drift- 
ing along  aimlessly  until  a  chance  hap- 
pening compels  him  to  realize  the  de- 
sirability of  becoming  a  skilful  dry-fly 
angler. 

At  first,  if  an  angler  has  been  a  wet 
fly  fisherman  all  his  life,  the  dry-fly 
and  the  methods  of  its  use  may  seem 
somewhat  strange  to  him  when  he 
takes  them  up;  in  other  words,  he  is 
apt  to  lack  that  confidence  in  himself 
and  the  dry-fly  that  he  has  when  cast- 
ing the  wet  fly,  to  the  handling  of 
which  he  has  become  thoroughly  ac- 

[166] 


Imaginary  Difficulties 

customed.  Many  are  wont  to  imagine, 
at  first,  that  there  is  something  more 
difficult  about  dry-fly  angling  than 
fishing  with  the  sunken  lure.  This,  I 
think,  is  not  so  when  one  has  acquired 
the  knack  of  it.  It  may  be  possible 
for  a  bungling  fisherman  to  meet  with 
success  in  some  wilderness  waters,  or 
at  times  in  streams  nearer  civilization 
when  they  are  high  and  discolored. 
But  to  be  a  finished  wet  fly  angler  one 
must  possess  as  much  skill  as  the  dry- 
fly  fisherman.  Nothing  but  experience 
can  teach  a  man  where  the  trout  lie 
in  the  streams;  if  one  starts  right,  and 
is  shown  how,  it  is  comparatively  easy 
to  cast  a  fly  skilfully.  There  are  no 
insurmountable  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
becoming  a  successful  dry-fly  angler 
that  do  not  confront  the  user  of  the 
sunken  fly. 

But  give  the  dry-fly  a  chance;    one 

[167] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

without  previous  practice  cannot  go 
upon  a  stream  for  one  day,  and  meet- 
ing with  no  success  rightfully  condemn 
the  dry-fly,  as  has  been  done  the  past 
year  by  several  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances of  the  author.  How  many 
times  have  not  one  but  many  anglers 
spent  an  entire  week  fishing  with  wet 
flies  on  some  well-known  trout  stream, 
without  taking  altogether  more  than  a 
few  small  fish?  My  advice  to  the  be- 
ginner with  the  dry-fly  is  to  go  ahead 
and  make  a  success  of  it,  without  being 
discouraged  by  real  or  fancied  ob- 
stacles. The  first  rise  to  the  imita- 
tion insect,  as  it  floats  down  the  stream 
in  plain  sight  of  the  angler,  will  give 
the  beginner  a  thrill  he  has  seldom  had 
when  he  has  felt  the  tug  of  a  trout 
taking  the  sunken  fly.  The  dry-fly 
game  is  worth  while,  and  no  one  should 
hesitate  to  make  any  efforts  necessary 

[168] 


A  Plea  for  Sportsmanship 

to  overcome  what  may  appear  to  him 
to  be  difficulties  in  the  way  of  becom- 
ing an  accomplished  dry-fly  fisherman. 
The  author  is  intensely  interested  in 
seeing  the  use  of  the  dry-fly  spread  in 
America  for  several  reasons,  of  which 
the  principal  one  is,  perhaps,  that  it 
will  give  a  greatly  added  pleasure  to 
our  anglers.  It  is  a  delicate  and  artis- 
tic method  of  taking  trout,  and  I  have 
found  almost  without  exception  that 
dry-fly  experts  have  such  a  great  love 
of  the  game,  that  a  heavy  creel  at  the 
end  of  the  day  is  not  the  principal  de- 
sideratum. In  these  days  of  depleted 
streams  it  is  most  necessary  that  the 
doctrine  should  be  spread  broadcast 
that  the  one  pleasure  of  trout  fishing, 
apart  from  the  joy  of  being  close  to 
nature,  is  the  matching  of  one's  wits 
against  the  cunning  of  the  trout.  He 
alone  deserves  the  title  of  sportsman 

[169] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

who  returns  carefully  to  the  water  all 
trout  that  he  does  not  need  for  food; 
as  soon  as  the  fish  is  taken  into  the 
net,  all  the  sport  to  be  had  with  that 
particular  fish  is  over,  and  when  killed 
and  put  into  the  creel  it  has  become 
simply  meat. 

I  apprehend  that  one  of  the  dis- 
couragements with  which  the  dry-fly 
beginner  is  liable  to  meet  for  some 
time  to  come  will  be  improper  tackle, 
foisted  upon  him,  unintentionally,  per- 
haps, by  dealers  who  themselves  are 
not  familiar  with  the  flies  and  lead- 
ers used  by  dry-fly  experts,  and  who 
think  that  they  have  made  their  best 
efforts  to  secure  a  supply  of  proper 
tackle.  Some  friends  have  complained 
that  dry-flies  used  by  them  last  season 
could  not  be  made  to  float;  while  I 
have  heard  certain  dealers  recommend 
leaders  almost  strong  enough  for  sal- 

[170] 


Care  in  Purchasing  Tackle 

mon  fishing,  and  yet  they  did  it 
without  intent  to  deceive.  Therefore, 
whenever  he  can  do  so,  it  will  be  ad- 
visable for  the  beginner  to  consult 
some  expert  dry-fly  angler  before  pur- 
chasing tackle,  especially  flies  and 
leaders.  If  the  enthusiasm  over  this 
method  of  fishing  becomes  general 
among  fly-fishermen,  as  it  now  bids 
fair  to  do,  it  will  be  only  a  short  time 
before  all  our  best  tackle  dealers  have 
a  full  and  proper  equipment  of  dry- 
fly  necessities. 


CHAPTER  XV 


Artificial  Dry-Flies  and  a  Few 
Words  About  the  Living  Eph- 
emeridce 


IT  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
almost  any  one  with  an  analytical 
mind,  whether  a  fisherman  or  not, 
would  assent  readily  to  the  proposition 
that  a  trout,  when  in  a  mood  to  feed 
on  insects,  would  be  more  inclined  to 
take  an  artificial  fly  closely  resembling 
the  natural  insects  upon  which  it  has 
been  accustomed  to  feed,  than  a  lure 
bearing  no  resemblance  to  any  living 
thing.  Those  who  pretend  to  believe 
in  a  contrary  theory  sometimes  en- 
deavor to  clinch  their  argument  tri- 
umphantly by  saying  that  "a  trout  is 
not  an  entomologist" \  How  absurd  to 
[172] 


Trout  Carefully  Selective 

claim  that  it  would  have  to  be  to  se- 
lect the  food  it  likes  best.  It  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  a  trout  from  its 
earliest  infancy  has  but  two  principal 
occupations — to  exercise  a  constant 
watchfulness  lest  it  fall  into  the  clutches 
of  its  enemies  and  to  secure  its  food  en- 
tirely unaided.  From  almost  the  time 
it  is  hatched  the  little  trout  fry  has  no 
one  to  show  it  what  to  eat;  it  must 
make  its  own  selection  of  food.  Must 
it  be  an  entomologist  to  be  able  to  do 
this?  Who  that  has  passed  many  days 
on  the  streams,  and  has  performed 
autopsies  on  the  fish,  can  doubt  that 
at  times,  at  least,  the  trout  is  most 
carefully  selective  in  its  food?  What 
angler  is  there  who  has  not  seen  in  a 
trout's  stomach  the  black  mass  made 
up  of  thousands  of  little  gnats,  all  of 
one  species,  and  failed  to  find  a  sin- 
gle specimen  of  another  insect,  though 

[173] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

several  varieties  of  flies,  at  other  times 
greedily  taken  by  the  fish,  may  have 
been  on  the  water  at  the  time  this 
fish  was  feeding?  Does  this  selection 
on  the  part  of  the  trout  indicate  that  it 
must  necessarily  be  an  entomologist? 

While  in  wet  fly  fishing  it  is  possible 
and  even  probable  that  frequently  the 
trout  takes  a  lure  resembling  in  no  way 
any  living  creature,  so  far  as  man  can 
judge,  simply  because  it  looks  as  if  it 
possibly  might  be  something  good  to 
eat,  yet  there  seems  to  be  every  reason 
to  believe  that  the  trout  takes  the  dry- 
fly  floating  upon  the  surface  of  the 
water  for  a  winged  insect,  and  for 
nothing  else.  Therefore,  dry-fly  an- 
gling may  be  said  to  be  based  upon  the 
imitation  theory.  It  is  true  that  while 
the  hands  of  the  most  skilful  of  fly- 
tiers  cannot  fashion  of  the  materials  at 
his  command  an  exact  imitation  of  a 

[174] 


Good  Imitations  Necessary 

living  fly,  yet  it  is  undoubtedly  possible 
to  make  such  good  imitations  of  natural 
flies  that  they  deceive  the  trout  at  least 
momentarily.  It  seems  apparent  that 
if  human  skill  cannot  fashion  an  imi- 
tation of  a  living  insect  so  that  its  com- 
parative crudity  is  not  apparent,  the 
very  best  imitations  possible  should  be 
the  aim  of  the  fly-tier  and  of  the  an- 
gler. In  the  face  of  the  great  mass  of 
evidence  that  exists  in  the  writings  of 
expert  anglers,  it  would  seem  impos- 
sible that  a  man  with  an  unprejudiced 
mind  could  fail  to  believe  that  trout 
take  many  varieties  of  floating  flies 
thinking  them  to  be  the  live  insects 
that  they  are  intended  to  represent. 
Further,  it  is  not  doubted  by  many  in- 
telligent and  experienced  anglers  that 
the  trout  can  distinguish  the  minute 
differences  between  the  males  and  fe- 
males of  these  various  species. 

[175] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

If,  then,  the  dry-fly  angler  seems  pre- 
pared to  prove  by  experience  the  the- 
ory that  the  trout  mistakes  his  lures 
for  actual  living  insects,  it  may  be 
asked:  How  is  it  that  at  times  he  is 
successful  with  floating  flies  that  do  not 
resemble,  at  least  in  color,  any  known 
insect?  For  the  dry-fly,  as  well  as  the 
wet,  has  its  list  of  nondescripts  or 
fancy  flies.  The  simplest  explanation 
may  be  that  of  the  late  H.  G.  McClel- 
land, who  believed  it  unnecessary  to 
hunt  for  any  complicated  scientific 
theory.  Why  not  merely  say  that  the 
trout,  with  its  predatory  instincts,  sees 
this  small  weak  thing  floating  above  it, 
and,  not  fearing  it,  seizes  it  at  a  ven- 
ture? But  there  occurs  to  me  fully  as 
simple  a  theory  and  one  that  appears 
at  least  as  reasonable.  Even  the  fancy 
flies  of  the  dry-fly  angler  are  generally 
the  same  size  and  shape  as  the  living 

[176] 


Fancy  Flies,  Wet  and  Dry 

ephemeridse.  Slight  differences  in  color 
are  not  liable  to  startle  the  fish,  per- 
haps, especially  when  it  has  only  a 
momentary  glimpse  of  the  flies  as  they 
float  over  it.  If  the  color  of  the  body— 
a  body  wrapped  with  gold  tinsel,  for 
instance — marks  the  prominent  point 
of  difference,  it  may  be  that  this  vari- 
ation in  color  will  serve  merely  to  at- 
tract the  attention  of  the  fish  after  it 
has  been  sated  with  food  of  more 
sombre  coloring,  without  having  a  ten- 
dency to  startle  it.  It  has  many  times 
been  observed  by  dry-fly  anglers  that 
after  they  had  tried  without  success 
many  of  their  reliable  patterns  that 
were  exact  imitations,  a  fancy  pattern 
would  succeed  in  bringing  about  the 
desired  result  of  raising  the  trout.  But 
even  so,  it  seems  to  me  that  there  is  a 
vast  difference  between  the  possible  ex- 
planations of  the  success  of  fancy  pat- 

[177]. 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

terns  of  wet  flies  and  of  dry-flies,  for 
as  a  rule  the  latter  usually  resemble 
the  favorite  duns  in  size,  shape,  and 
action,  while  the  wet  flies  are  admitted, 
even  by  devotees  of  the  sunken  fly,  to 
resemble  no  living  thing. 

A  vast  majority  of  the  dry-flies  used 
by  anglers  are  tied  in  imitation  of  small 
ephemeral  insects  called  duns.  These 
ephemeridse  exist  in  large  numbers  and 
there  are  many  varieties,  though  the 
described  species  may  be  not  more  than 
two  hundred.  A  few  of  them  are  large, 
such  as  the  May-fly,  March  brown, 
and  August  dun,  but  most  of  them  are 
very  small.  Changes  in  color  take 
place  in  this  species  of  ephemeridse  as 
they  advance  from  spring  to  summer, 
and  as  they  retrograde  again  toward 
autumn.  In  the  summer  months  their 
hues  are  warmer  and  lighter.  Species 
after  species  arrives,  one  after  the  other 

[178] 


Duns  Both  Gay  and  Sombre 

in  never-ending  succession,  the  indi- 
vidual life  of  each  insect,  in  its  winged 
state,  being  only  a  few  hours,  or  at 
most  a  few  days.  There  is  a  wide  dif- 
ference in  many  species  between  the 
male  and  the  female,  and  Mr.  Halford's 


Iron-blue  dun  Jenny  spinner  Pale  evening  dun 

latest  patterns  are  tied  in  imitation 
both  of  male  and  female.  While  there 
are  summer  duns  of  brilliant  hues — 
yellow,  orange,  red,  and  cinnamon — 
the  prevailing  color  of  duns  may 
be  said  to  be  a  bluish-gray.  Their 
life  in  the  winged  state  is  short, 
but  in  their  aquatic  form  they  live 
sometimes  two  or  even  three  years. 
All  ephemerida?  are  aquatic  in  their 
earlier  stages  of  existence.  The  eggs 
[179] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

are  dropped  into  the  water  in  large 
numbers  by  the  females.  They  have 
three  or  four  modes  of  life  when  in  the 
larval  state;  some  form  tubes  in  the 
mud  or  clay  in  which  they  live,  some 
live  beneath  stones,  while  others  swim 
and  crawl  among  the  water  plants. 
They  are  carnivorous  and  also  feed 
upon  vegetable  life.  When  the  insect 
has  reached  full  growth  in  its  aquatic 
form,  after  from  six  months  to  three 
years  of  existence,  it  seeks  the  surface 
of  the  water.  Its  thorax  splits  down 
the  back,  and  it  appears  in  its  winged 
shape.  It  is  not  as  yet  perfect,  though 
it  has  the  form  of  a  perfect  insect  and 
can  fly.  In  this  stage  it  is  called  pseud- 
imago,  sub-imago,  or  pro-imago.  But 
there  remains  a  pellicle,  or  case,  com- 
pletely covering  it  which  has  yet  to  be 
shed.  Soon  after  the  insect  has  ap- 
peared in  this  winged  form  it  finds  a 

[180] 


Imitations  of  Many  Species 

resting  place,  its  pellicle  splits  down 
the  back,  and  there  comes  forth  the 
perfect  insect,  differing  much  from  its 
previous  form  in  color  and  in  markings, 
while  its  shape  is  entirely  different  from 
that  of  its  aquatic  state.  Its  wings,  of 
which  it  has  two  pairs — the  anterior 
pair  large,  the  posterior  pair  much 
smaller — stand  erect  upon  the  body. 

To  one  who  has  made  a  study  of  an- 
gling books  and  of  English  angling 
catalogues  it  would  appear  that  nearly 
all  the  described  species  of  duns  must 
have  at  some  time  been  imitated  in 
trout  flies.  In  1886,  Mr.  Halford,  in 
"Floating  Flies  and  How  to  Dress 
Them,"  gave  a  list  of  ninety  patterns 
of  dry-flies,  most  of  which,  though  not 
all,  belonged  to  the  ephemeridse  family, 
and  in  his  "Dry-Fly  Entomology" 
(1897)  he  named  one  hundred  patterns. 
The  study  of  English  flies  is  a  necessity 

[181] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

to  American  anglers,  as  at  present  we 
have  no  fly-fisher's  entomology  of  our 
own,  and,  as  has  been  stated,  there 
seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  many  species 
of  duns  are  common  to  both  English 
and  American  streams.  The  entomo- 
logical experiences  of  the  author  have 
no  scientific  value,  but,  in  the  spring  of 
1911,  in  a  few  days  he  examined  ap- 
proximately two  hundred  insects  of  the 
ephemeridae  family  caught  upon  Amer- 
ican waters.  Unfortunately,  he  had  no 
English  entomology  with  him;  but  so 
far  as  he  could  carry  in  his  mind  the 
color  and  forms  of  the  insects  shown  in 
British  plates,  the  ephemeridse  exam- 
ined seemed  in  no  way  different  from 
those  hatched  in  English  streams. 

As  time  has  gone  on  it  has  become 
customary  for  expert  angler-entomolo- 
gists to  reduce  the  number  of  patterns 
of  floating  flies  considered  necessary  in 

[182] 


Mr.  Halford's  List  of  Flies 

dry-fly  fishing.  Mr.  Halford  in  his 
latest  work,  "The  Modern  Develop- 
ment of  the  Dry-Fly,"  published  in 
1911,  reduced  his  number  of  patterns 
to  thirty-three,  as  follows:  Male  and 
female  patterns  each  of  the  green  May- 
fly, brown  May-fly,  spent  gnat,  olive 
dun,  dark  olive  dun,  olive  spinner, 
pale  watery  dun,  pale  watery  spin- 
ner, iron-blue  dun,  iron-blue  spin- 
ner, blue-winged  olive,  sherry  spinner, 
black  gnat,  Welshman's  button,  and 
the  olive  (red)  spinner  (female),  brown 
ant,  small  dark  sedge,  medium  sedge, 
and  cinnamon  sedge. 

Mr.  G.  A.  B.  Dewar,  in  "The  Book 
of  the  Dry-Fly,"  1896  edition,  says: 
"The  tendency  of  dry-fly  fishing  is  to- 
ward restricting  the  number  of  flies 
and  patterns,  therefore  simplifying  the 
most  complex  and  confusing  branch  of 
angling.  .  .  .  The  principle  of  dry-fly 

[183] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

fishing  being  to  imitate  nature  as  closely 
as  possible,  the  angler  is  naturally  in- 
clined to  limit  his  choice  of  artificial 
flies  to  the  imitation  of  those  kinds 
of  insects  which  are  seen  on  the  water 
in  numbers.  Such  insects  on  dry-fly 
waters  can  almost  be  reckoned  upon 
the  fingers  of  both  hands,  and  this  list 
will,  I  think,  be  found  to  exclude  no 
fly  of  importance  to  the  angler:  Olive 
and  blue  duns  and  the  red  spinner; 
iron-blue  dun  and  sherry  spinner; 
March  brown  and  the  great  red  spin- 
ner; yellow  dun,  red  quill,  May-fly, 
and  spent  gnat;  alder,  sedge,  and  the 
grannom.  The  list,  for  ordinary  pur- 
poses, might  be  reduced  to  include  only 
these  flies:  The  olive  dun  and  blue 
duns  and  their  imago,  the  red  spinner, 
the  iron-blue  dun,  the  March  brown, 
the  yellow  dun,  red  quill,  May-fly  and 
its  imago,  the  spent  gnat,  alder,  sedge." 

[1841 


Mr.  Dewar's  Reduced  List 

In  1910,  Mr.  Dewar  further  reduces 
his  list,  saying:  "To-day  my  list  would 
probably  be  olive  dun,  Wickham,  hare's 
ear,  iron-blue  dun,  red  quill,  sedge, 
alder  and  May-fly,"  while  he  calls  the 
olive  dun  the  "chief  fly  in  this  style  of 
angling." 

In  America,  for  the  reason  already 
given,  namely,  that  we  have  no  Ameri- 
can fly-fisher's  entomology,  anglers 
have  been  compelled  to  select  patterns 
from  the  lists  of  Mr.  Halford  or  other 
English  writers,  or  depend  at  first  upon 
advice  from  friends  who  have  had  ex- 
perience in  dry-fly  angling  and  have 
discovered  patterns  which  they  have 
found  successful  upon  our  streams. 
The  following  list  of  flies  recommended 
by  the  author  for  American  streams 
was  published  in  1911,  and  will,  I 
think,  prove  useful:  Whirling  dun, 
pale  evening  dun,  Wickham's  fancy, 

[185] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

Jenny  spinner,  willow-fly,  orange  fish- 
hawk,  soldier  palmer,  white  miller, 
coachman,  black  gnat.  I  am  firmly  of 
the  opinion  that  a  skilful  angler  will 
have  all  the  patterns  of  flies  absolutely 
needed  on  at  least  many  of  our  Eastern 
streams,  if  he  uses  this  list.  Of  these, 
in  my  experience,  limited  indeed  com- 
pared with  that  of  various  experts 
quoted  in  this  book,  I  have  found  the 
whirling  dun  and  Wickham's  fancy  to 
be  all-around  dependable  lures.  To- 
ward evening,  when  daylight  is  disap- 
pearing, a  fly  of  lighter  hue  is  recom- 
mended, so  that  the  angler  may  be 
able  to  see  the  insect  plainly  both  when 
it  is  in  the  air  and  on  the  water.  At 
this  time  a  valuable  fly  is  the  pale 
evening  dun,  the  willow-fly,  or  the 
Jenny  spinner,  while  the  favorite  fly 
of  many  at  this  time  of  the  day — in 
fact,  of  some  anglers  all  through  the 

[186] 


The  Favorite  Old  Coachman 

day — is  the  well-known  old  favorite,  the 
coachman,  "tied  dry,"  of  course.  Since 
my  last  trip  to  the  trout  streams,  in 
the  summer  of  1911,  I  have  received  a 
complete  set  of  the  latest  Halford  pat- 
terns, and  hope  to  try  many  of  them 
in  the  season  of  1912.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  no  American  angler  need  hesitate 
to  go  upon  our  streams  with  these  imi- 
tations and  no  others. 


[187] 


CHAPTER  XVI 

The  History  of  the  Floating  Fly 
and  Some  of  Its  Interesting 
Literature 


WHO  invented  the  artificial 
floating  fly  and  the  methods 
of  using  it? 

During  the  winter  months  of  1910- 
11,  the  author  read  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  one  hundred  and  fifty  angling 
books,  or  at  least  looked  carefully  over 
their  pages,  having  in  mind,  inciden- 
tally, the  idea  of  discovering,  if  possible, 
the  first  mention  of  the  dry-fly  in  an- 
gling literature.  In  one  old  book,  pub- 
lished about  a  century  ago,  he  found  a 
story  of  a  French  angler  living  in  Scot- 
land who  tied  his  imitation  flies  in 
what  the  author  called  "a  peculiar 

[188] 


The  Dry-Fly  in  Its  Infancy 

way,"  so  that  they  "floated  longer  on 
the  surface  of  the  water  after  being 
cast  than  the  ordinary  wet  fly."  But 
in  reading  Mr.  G.  P.  R.  Pulman's 
"Vade-Mecum  of  Fly-Fishing  for 
Trout,"  published  in  1851,  I  came 
across  what  seemed  to  be  a  descrip- 
tion of  our  present-day  theory  of  the 
dry-fly.  This  subject,  I  have  since 
learned,  was  mentioned  in  a  much 
smaller  edition  of  Mr.  Pulman's  work, 
published  in  1846.  In  the  summer  of 
1911, 1  wrote  to  Mr.  R.  B.  Marston,  of 
London,  asking  for  information  about 
the  early  history  of  the  dry-fly  in  Eng- 
land, and  he  in  turn  consulted  Mr. 
William  Senior,  the  well-known  "Red 
Spinner"  of  angling  literature.  Mr. 
Senior  referred  to  Mr.  Pulman's  book 
as  containing  the  first  mention  of  the 
dry-fly  of  which  he  was  aware,  but 
added:  "I  am  now  away  from  all  my 

[189] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

books  and  papers  and  cannot  give  you 
a  definite  reply  to  your  question." 
Mr.  Marston,  in  sending  to  me  Mr. 
Senior's  letter,  said:  "I  feel  sure  it  was 
in  Pulman's  'Vade-Mecum,'  1846,  that 
Mr.  Senior  discovered  one  of  the  first 
references  to  dry-fly  fishing,  though  in 
earlier  works  there  have  been  remarks 
which  make  one  feel  pretty  certain  it 
was  not  an  unknown  art." 

Feeling  sure  that  all  who  are  inter- 
ested in  the  floating  fly  will  find  en- 
tertainment in  reading  Mr.  Pulman's 
early  description  of  it,  I  quote  from 
his  book  at  some  length:  "It  is  im- 
possible to  give  infallible  directions  for 
the  use  of  particular  flies  at  every  par- 
ticular time,  although  we  shall  else- 
where do  all  we  consider  necessary. 
Much  must  be  left  to  the  angler's  own 
judgment;  but  we  advise  him  to  be 
careful  of  falling  into  the  error  of  con- 

[190] 


Mr.  Pulman's  Theories 

stantly  changing  his  flies  when  fishing, 
thereby  perplexing  himself,  and,  gen- 
erally speaking,  wasting  time.  Fish 
are  proverbially  capricious,  and  many 
of  their  habits,  in  regard  to  feeding 
and  otherwise,  depend  on  circumstances 
which,  with  all  our  knowledge  of 
natural  history,  are  not  understood. 
The  angler,  therefore,  must  not  be  too 
ready  to  attribute  his  want  of  success 
at  any  time  to  a  mistake  in  the  selec- 
tion of  his  fly.  There  are  many  cir- 
cumstances to  which  it  may  with 
greater  justice  be  traced.  For  in- 
stance, a  certain  fly  is  often  thought- 
lessly said  to  be  refused  by  fish  on  the 
sole  account  of  its  dissimilarity  to  some 
supposed  favorite  species,  when  a  little 
observation  would  lead  to  another  con- 
clusion— a  conclusion  perhaps  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  probably  correct  one,  in 
many  cases,  of  the  unskilfulness  of  the 

[191] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

angler.  But  supposing  this  to  be  other- 
wise— supposing  even  the  angler  to  be 
expert,  and  to  have  a  good  imitation 
of  the  fly  at  which  the  fish  are  rising 
well — say  a  fly  of  the  dun  tribe,  preva- 
lent on  every  water.  He  makes  his 
casts  admirably.  In  the  gentle  stickle 
which  hugs  the  opposite  bank,  a  line  of 
trout  are  rising  gloriously,  but  not  one 
of  them  is  attracted  by  his  well-pre- 
sented lure.  He  throws,  and  throws, 
and  throws  again,  but  still  with  the 
same  result.  He  is  at  a  loss  to  ac- 
count for  the  cause,  except  that  it  must 
be  evidently  something  or  other  wrong 
in  his  fly.  No  such  thing.  We  admit 
the  fly  to  be  a  good  imitation,  to  be 
nicely  cast  over  rising  fish  repeatedly, 
time  after  time,  and  yet  with  not  a 
rise  is  poor  Piscator  favored.  Well, 
how  is  this?  Piscator  does  not  see- 
he  is  so  wrapped  up  in  the  make  of  his 

[192] 


Feeding  Fish  Fastidious 

fly — that  something  more  than  make 
is  necessary;  that  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances an  imitation  of  the  action 
of  the  natural  fly  is  indispensable,  and 
that  when  that  action  is  not  supplied, 
as  in  the  present  case,  success  cannot 
be  had.  But  Piscator  should  reflect, 
and  the  seeming  mystery  would  be  un- 
folded thus:  The  fish  are  feeding,  as 
they  delight  to  do,  upon  flies  ephem- 
eral, and  have,  perhaps,  as  the  season 
advanced,  become  somewhat  fastidious 
in  their  selection  of  particular  species. 
Well,  at  the  time  in  question,  the  line 
of  fish  in  the  stickle  under  the  oppo- 
site bank  aforesaid  are  gastronomi- 
cally  moved  toward  a  certain  species  of 
the  class  of  flies  referred  to,  every  one 
of  which  is  characterized  by  the  habit 
of  floating  upon  the  surface  of  the  water 
in  reverse  of  the  phryganidae,  which 
generally  hover  above  it  and  flit  about 

[193] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

the  banks.  Impelled  by  some  pecu- 
liarity of  the  atmosphere,  or  by  some 
other  cause  which  we  cannot,  and  need 
not  if  we  could,  explain,  the  fish  have 
come  close  to  the  surface  to  watch  for 
their  prey,  which  can  thus  be  easily 
seized  as  the  victims  float  along  with- 
out further  trouble  on  the  part  of  the 
fish  than  gently  lifting  their  mouths 
above  the  water.  Now,  the  angler's 
fly  is  wet  and  heavy,  and,  thrown  from 
the  other  side,  has  a  certain  weight  of 
line  in  addition.  So,  as  it  is  not  in  the 
nature  of  things  that  this  soaked  arti- 
ficial fly  can  swim  upon  the  surface  as 
the  natural  ones  do,  it  follows  the  al- 
ternative and  sinks  below  the  rising 
fish,  the  notice  of  which  it  entirely 
escapes,  because  they  happen  just  then 
to  be  looking  upward  for  the  materials 
of  their  meal.  Let  a  dry-fly  be  sub- 
stituted for  the  wet  one,  the  line 

[194] 


Heavy  Odds  Against  a  Trout 

switched  a  few  times  through  the  air 
to  throw  off  its  superabundant  mois- 
ture, a  judicious  cast  made  just  above 
the  rising  fish,  and  the  fly  allowed  to 
float  toward  and  over  them,  and  the 
chances  are  ten  to  one  that  it  will  be 
seized  as  readily  as  a  living  insect. 
This  dry-fly,  we  must  remark,  should 
be  an  imitation  of  the  natural  fly  on 
which  the  trout  are  feeding,  because 
if  widely  different  the  fish,  instead  of 
being  allured,  would  most  likely  be 
surprised  and  startled  at  the  novelty 
presented,  and  would  suspend  feeding 
until  the  appearance  of  their  favorite 
and  familiar  prey. 

"We  mention  this  as  an  illustration 
of  the  importance  of  imitating  action, 
and  must  not  be  understood  to  recom- 
mend the  constantly  substituting  of  a 
dry-fly  for  a  wet  one,  over  every  rising 
fish.  Better,  as  a  general  rule,  when 

[195] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

the  angler,  after  a  few  casts,  finds  the 
fish  over  which  he  throws  unwilling  to 
be  tempted,  pass  on  in  search  of  a 
more  willing  victim.  This  caution  is 
the  more  necessary,  because  anglers 
too  often  expect  to  take  every  rising 
fish  over  which  they  throw;  whereas 
it  is  really  only  under  particular  cir- 
cumstances, and  in  favorable  situa- 
tions, that  the  motions  of  the  natural 
insect  can  be  so  imitated  as  to  prove 
successful,  unless  the  fish  are  raven- 
ous and  seize  everything  presented  to 
them — a  state  of  things  not  often  ex- 
perienced. 

"  There  is  much  common  sense  in 
the  following  remarks  by  a  writer  in 
the  Sporting  Review:  'A  fish,  as  may 
be  witnessed  from  a  bank,  when  on 
the  feed,  lies  with  his  nose  peering 
over  a  shore  or  ledge  of  rock,  and 
pointed  up  the  stream,  ready  to  take 

[196] 


Duns  Numerous  and  Popular 

the  flies  as  they  float  downward,  pro- 
vided there  be  nothing  obtrusive  in 
their  appearance  to  awaken  his  sus- 
picions and  restrain  his  appetite  until 
the  fly  is  past.  The  object  is  not  so 
much  to  awaken  his  appetite  by  a  fly 
more  attractive  than  the  natural  one, 
which  you  can  hardly  expect  to  achieve, 
as  to  avoid  startling  the  fish  when  he 
has  seen  your  fly  and  would  take  it, 
among  others,  if  there  were  nothing 
obtrusive  in  its  appearance.' 

"For  this  reason  we  recommend  imi- 
tations of  the  duns  as  standard  flies. 
There  is  not  a  river  in  the  kingdom  on 
which  some  species  of  this  beautiful 
tribe  of  ephemeral  flies  is  not  to  be 
found  daily  throughout  the  fishing  sea- 
son, and  generally  more  numerously 
than  any  other  fly.  The  fish  are  fa- 
miliar with  and  fond  of  them,  and  their 
varieties  are  extremely  numerous.  We 

[1971 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

have  for  many  years  fished  with  hardly 
any  other  flies  than  the  red  palmer  and 
some  shades  of  the  duns,  lighter  or 
darker,  larger  or  smaller,  according  to 
the  particular  states  of  the  water  and 
atmosphere,  and  the  result  is,  our  full 
concurrence  in  the  remark  of  Mr.  Ron- 
alds, that  'the  duns  form  the  sheet- 
anchor  of  the  fly-fisher's  practice." 

As  Mr.  Frederic  M.  Halford  has 
been  referred  to  frequently  as  the 
greatest  of  writers  on  the  dry-fly,  a 
subject  so  fascinating  to  an  angler,  a 
list  of  his  books,  in  the  order  in  which 
they  appeared,  is  given:  "Floating 
Flies  and  How  to  Dress  Them,"  1886; 
"Dry-Fly  Fishing  in  Theory  and  Prac- 
tice," 1889;  "Making  a  Fishery,"  1895; 
"Dry-Fly  Entomology,"  1897;  "An 
Angler's  Autobiography,"  1903;  "The 
Modern  Development  of  the  Dry-Fly," 
1910.  Another  book  is  now  on  the 
[198] 


Interesting  Dry-Fly  Books 

press,  "The  Dry-Fly  Man's  Hand- 
book." Among  other  English  books 
interesting  to  the  dry-fly  angler  may 
be  mentioned:  "The  Book  of  the  Dry- 
Fly,"  G.  A.  B.  Dewar,  1896;  "The 
Science  of  Dry-Fly  Fishing  and  Sal- 
mon-Fly Casting,"  Fred.  G.  Shaw, 
1907,  and  "Dry-Fly  Fishing  for  Trout 
and  Grayling,"  by  "Red  Quill"  (James 
Englefield),  1908. 

Angling  history  does  not  inform  us 
how  long  the  dry-fly  has  been  used,  in 
its  very  limited  way,  upon  American 
streams.  The  author  has  read  many 
American  works  on  angling,  and  the 
first  reference  to  genuine  dry-fly  fishing 
that  he  has  so  far  discovered  in  an 
American  book  is  a  short  description  of 
English  chalk  stream  methods  in  Dr. 
Edward  Breck's  "The  Way  of  the 
Woods,"  published  in  1908. 

Mr.  Thad.  Norris,  known  in  his  day 

[199] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

as  "the  dean  of  American  anglers," 
approached  very  closely  to  the  the- 
ories of  the  dry-fly  angler  of  to-day, 
when,  in  his  interesting  work,  "The 
American  Angler's  Book,"  published  in 
1864,  he  advised  wetting  the  line  occa- 
sionally to  make  it  heavier,  saying: 
"The  weight  of  the  line  thus  increased 
helps  the  cast.  If  it  could  be  accom- 
plished, the  great  desideratum  would 
be  to  keep  the  line  wet  and  the  flies 
dry.  I  have  seen  anglers  succeed  so 
well  in  their  efforts  to  do  this  by  the 
means  just  mentioned,  and  by  whip- 
ping the  moisture  from  their  flies,  that 
the  stretcher  and  dropper  would  fall 
so  lightly,  and  remain  so  long  on  the 
surface,  that  a  fish  would  rise  and  take 
the  fly  before  it  sank." 

In  the  same  chapter  Mr.  Norris  gives 
a  specific  instance  of  this  style  of  fish- 
ing: "It  occurred  at  a  pool  beneath 

[200] 


A  Veteran  Learns  a  Lesson 

the  fall  of  a  dam  on  the  Willowemoc, 
at  a  low  stage  of  water — none  running 
over.  The  fish  were  shy  and  refused 
every  fly  I  offered  them,  when  my 
friend  put  on  a  grannom  for  a  stretcher 
and  a  Jenny  spinner  for  a  dropper. 
His  leader  was  of  the  finest  gut  and 
his  flies  fresh,  and  by  cracking  the 
moisture  from  them  between  each 
throw,  he  would  lay  them  so  lightly 
on  the  glassy  surface  that  a  brace  of 
trout  would  take  them  at  almost  every 
cast  and  before  they  sank  or  were 
drawn  away.  He  had  tied  these  flies 
and  made  his  whip  especially  for  his 
evening  cast  on  this  pool,  and  as  the 
fish  would  not  notice  mine  I  was 
obliged  to  content  myself  with  land- 
ing his  fish,  which  in  a  half  hour 
counted  several  dozen.  Here  was  an 
exemplification  of  the  advantage  of 
keeping  one's  flies  dry." 

[201] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

Mr.  Genio  C.  Scott,  another  one 
of  the  best-known  American  angling 
writers  of  his  day,  relates  an  incident 
in  his  "Fishing  in  American  Waters" 
(1869),  that  seems  to  show  that  a 
knowledge  of  our  present  day  dry-fly 
methods  would  have  been  almost  as 
valuable  to  him  in  fishing  wilderness 
waters  as  it  has  been  claimed  by  the 
author  to  be  when  used  to-day  on  our 
much-fished  streams.  He  was  at  the 
celebrated  Middle  Dam  Camp,  at  the 
foot  of  Mollychunkemunk  Lake,  Me. 
He  says:  "It  is  here  that  I  met  a  new 
experience  in  the  character  of  trout, 
and  think  it  worth  relating  for  the 
benefit  of  anglers.  While  I  believe 
that  trout  are  not  generally  so  discrim- 
inating in  the  selection  of  artificial  flies 
as  to  evince  acuteness  of  vision,  yet  I 
have  experienced  that  at  certain  waters, 
when  the  streams  are  low  and  clear,  a 

[202] 


Facetious  Anglers  Pleased 

copy  of  the  living  fly  is  more  or  less 
necessary  to  success.  This  is  the  case 
at  the  pool  and  rapids  at  the  middle 
dam  at  the  head  of  Rapid  River,  where 
a  large  shoal  of  apparently  educated 
trout  keep  leaping  and  tumbling  so 
that  fifty  to  one  hundred  speckled 
beauties  of  from  two  to  five  pounds 
weight  are  always  in  sight.  But  it 
used  to  be  said  that  they  would  not 
take  an  artificial  fly;  so,  schoolboy-like, 
the  guests  at  the  camp  sent  every  an- 
gler on  his  arrival  'to  try  below  the 
dam,'  as  a  sell.  It  pleased  them  to  see 
a  fresh  man's  face  glow  at  the  first 
sight  of  those  sportive  beauties,  which 
acted  as  if  half  in  coquetry  and  half  in 
defiance  of  anglers.  I  felt  thankful 
when  witnessing  the  self-denying  hos- 
pitality which  prompted  several  an- 
glers, who  were  entire  strangers  to  me, 
to  cease  angling  opposite  the  camp  for 

[203] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

the  sole  purpose  of  showing  me  a  pool 
full  of  very  anxious  trout."  Mr.  Scott 
tried  many  casts,  "rested  the  pool" 
frequently,  and  devoted  two  days  to 
furnishing  in  this  manner  amusement 
to  the  anglers  of  the  camp,  and  doubt- 
less to  the  fish  as  well.  After  having 
exhausted  the  entire  stock  of  flies  in 
his  book,  the  next  day  he  sat  on  the 
dam  and  watched  the  rising  fish  to  dis- 
cover what  they  were  feeding  on. 
Soon  he  saw  a  trout  rise  gracefully 
and  swallow  an  ash-colored  midge 
which  had  floated  down  from  the  dam. 
"On  looking  around  me,"  he  contin- 
ued, "I  saw  a  cloud  of  drab  ephemera 
rather  larger  than  mosquitoes,  swarm- 
ing over  the  dry  timber  dam,  and  ever 
and  anon  as  one  fell  on  the  water,  a 
trout  rose  very  gracefully  and  swal- 
lowed it."  He  soon  found  in  his  fly- 
book  an  ash-midge,  closely  resembling 

[204] 


Mr.  Scott  Turns  the  Laugh 

the  real  insect,  and  immediately  began 
taking  the  big  fish,  at  last  turning  the 
laugh  upon  the  guests  who  had  sent 
him  to  this  pool  as  a  huge  joke. 

As  Mr.  Scott,  completely  foiled  after 
two  days'  hard  work,  sat  on  the  dam 
and  discovered  not  only  that  the  trout 
were  taking  an  ash-midge,  but  that 
they  took  it  as  it  floated  to  them,  who 
can  doubt  that  this  contemplative  an- 
gler, with  a  vast  knowledge  of  fish 
and  fishing,  presented  his  imitation 
in  the  same  manner  as  the  original 
insect  had  been  offered  to  the  trout, 
namely,  by  floating  it  down? 

Does  it  not  strike  the  reader  as 
somewhat  curious  that  both  these  skil- 
ful and  experienced  anglers,  Mr.  Norris 
and  Mr.  Scott,  having  had  presented  to 
them  in  such  a  forceful  manner  the 
great  advantage  of  using,  at  least  under 
certain  conditions,  a  floating  imitation 

[205] 


Practical  Dry-Fly  Fishing 

of  a  natural  insect,  apparently  did  not 
pursue  the  subject  further  than  the  in- 
cidental mention,  as  quoted  above,  of 
this  method  of  angling? 

For  many  years  a  comparatively 
small  number  of  enthusiastic  American 
anglers  have  fished  certain  well-known 
Eastern  streams  with  the  dry-fly.  For 
several  seasons  it  has  been  the  favor- 
ite lure,  in  the  fall,  of  ouananiche  an- 
glers on  some  of  the  Maine  streams.  A 
few  of  the  devotees  of  the  floating  fly 
have  become  so  fascinated  by  dry-fly 
methods  that  they  will  use  no  other 
lure  in  fishing  for  trout.  Their  suc- 
cess has  been  so  great  in  taking  trout 
in  summer  from  some  of  the  low,  clear 
streams  of  New  York,  that  others  fre- 
quenting these  waters  have  eagerly 
adopted  their  method.  But  at  pres- 
ent it  cannot  be  said  that  the  use  of 
the  dry-fly  has  become  at  all  general 

[206] 


The  Dry-Fly  Winning  Its  Way 

in  America.  No  longer  ago  than  the 
spring  of  1911,  one  of  the  largest  New 
York  dealers  in  fishing  tackle — one  of 
the  few  who  have  carried  a  stock 
of  floating  flies  for  a  number  of  years 
—told  the  author  that  in  his  opin- 
ion there  were  not  more  than  one 
hundred  real  dry-fly  fishermen  in  the 
United  States.  During  the  past  year, 
however,  interest  in  this  method  of  an- 
gling has  been  increasing  rapidly,  and 
the  dry-fly  bids  fair  to  occupy  as  im- 
portant a  place  in  America  as  it  now 
occupies  in  England.  Heretofore  it 
has  not  fought  for  recognition;  it 
has  been  almost  totally  neglected  by 
American  angling  writers,  and  has  been 
lightly  tossed  aside  by  many  anglers  as 
an  English  fad.  As  it  becomes  better 
known  the  beauties  of  its  methods  can- 
not help  appealing  to  expert  fly-fisher- 
men and  winning  a  way  to  their  hearts. 

[207] 


APPENDIX 

THE  PROPER  EQUIPMENT  FOR  A  DRY-FLY 
ANGLER  DESCRIBED  BRIEFLY 

Clothing. — Optional  with  wearer,  but 
inconspicuous  clothes  of  some  dark 
color  are  strongly  recommended. 

For  Wading. — Light  wading  stock- 
ings or  trousers  desirable,  with  heavy- 
soled  brogues,  hob-nailed;  always  wear 
heavy  woollen  socks  between  waders 
and  brogues  to  prevent  the  wading 
stockings  from  being  injured  by  sand 
and  gravel. 

Rod. — Split-bamboo  with  good  back- 
bone, from  nine  to  ten  feet  long; 
weight,  from  four  and  one-half  to  six 
ounces.  Perhaps  the  best  all-around 
rod  is  one  nine  and  one-half  feet  long, 
weighing  about  five  and  one-half  ounces. 

Line. — English  enameled  and  water- 
proofed, tapered;  weight  to  fit  the  rod, 

[209] 


Appendix 

but  as  a  general  rule  E  is  the  proper 
size. 

Reel. — Single  click,  of  a  weight  that 
balances  rod  properly. 

Leader. — Standard  dry-fly  leader  is 
nine  feet  long,  tapered  from  heavy 
gut  at  the  line  end  to  finest  undrawn 
at  the  fly  end.  When  casting  against 
a  strong  wind  a  leader  of  six  feet  is 
more  easily  managed. 

Fly  Boxes. — Several  kinds  of  boxes 
made  to  hold  eyed-flies  may  be  found 
in  the  leading  tackle  stores.  One  good 
pattern  is  a  box  having  twelve  or  fif- 
teen compartments  for  dry-flies,  with 
transparent  covers.  Another  is  a  box 
with  patent  clips,  holding  the  hook  by 
the  bend. 

Landing  Net. — Almost  any  good  net 
will  do,  so  long  as  the  handle  is  not  too 
long.  There  are  several  styles  of  fold- 
ing nets  that  are  very  convenient  for 
stream  fishing.  Do  not  choose  one  of 
the  smallest  nets  made,  as  trouble  may 
follow  when  a  large  fish  is  hooked. 

[210] 


Appendix 

Creel. — Any  one  of  the  various  styles 
of  willow  baskets.  Canvas  creels  are 
convenient,  but  do  not  keep  the  fish  in 
such  good  condition  as  those  made  of 
willow. 

Oil. — One  of  the  several  prepara- 
tions made  for  oiling  dry-flies,  or 
white  odorless,  stainless  paraffin  oil, 
sold  by  dealers  in  oil  and  paint. 

Oiler. — A  bottle  of  glass  or  metal 
having  a  small  brush  in  the  stopper. 
Various  kinds  of  oilers,  made  especially 
for  the  purpose,  are  kept  in  stock  by 
dealers. 

Scissors  and  Tweezers. — A  small  pair 
of  scissors,  vest-pocket  size,  or  a  com- 
bination gut  cutter  and  tweezers,  for 
cutting  off  superfluous  ends  of  gut. 

Deer  Fat. — A  small  can  of  deer  fat 
for  greasing  lines;  this  keeps  the  line  in 
good  condition  and  makes  it  float. 

Leader  Book. — Convenient  and  nec- 
essary for  carrying  leaders.  A  book 
with  chamois  pockets  keeps  leaders  in 
good  condition. 

[211] 


Appendix 

Leader  Box. — Contains  felt  pads  for 
keeping  leaders  moist.  Put  leaders  in 
box  at  least  an  hour  before  using,  but 
be  sure  and  remove  them  at  the  end 
of  the  day. 

Flies. — The  following  list  of  flies  is 
recommended  by  the  author  for  use  on 
American  streams.  To  give  a  complete 

10        II        12      13      14     15    16    17 


I        0     00   000 


list  of  all  flies  that  might  be  used  at 
times  to  advantage,  would  be  undesir- 
able and  confusing,  as  their  name  is  le- 
gion. For  American  waters  flies  tied 
on  larger  hooks  than  those  commonly 
used  on  the  English  chalk  streams  are 
strongly  recommended.  Many  expert 
American  anglers  use  dry-flies  tied  on 
No.  12  and  No.  14  hooks.  In  the  ac- 
companying plate,  showing  hooks  of 
various  sizes,  the  English  way  of  num- 


Appendix 

bering  them  (called  the  "new  style") 
is  shown  by  the  figures  below  the  hooks, 
while  the  "old  style"  commonly  used 
in  America  is  shown  by  the  figures 
above  the  hooks: 

WHIRLING   DUN 

Wings. — Medium  starling. 

Body. — Water  rat's  fur,  tinged  with  yellow. 

Hackle. — Ginger  cock. 

Whisk—  Red  cock's  hackle. 

WICKHAM'S  FANCY 

Wings. — Medium,  or  light  starling. 

Body. — Flat  gold,  ribbed  with  fine  gold  wire. 

Hackle. — Red  cock's,  run  down  body. 

PALE   EVENING   DUN 

Wings. — Light  starling. 

Body. — Pale  fawn-colored  wool;  or  yellow  mar- 
ten's fur  spun  on  pale  fawn-colored  silk 
thread. 

Hackle. — Pale  dun. 

Whisk. — Pale  dun  hackle. 

JENNY   SPINNER    (HACKLE   FLY) 

Body. — White  floss  silk,  tied  at  thorax  and 
tail  with  -four  or  five  turns  of  deep  red- 
brown  silk. 

[213] 


Appendix 

Hackle. — Very  light  dun. 
Whisk. — Very  light  dun  hackle. 

WILLOW  FLY  (HACKLE  FLY) 

Body. — Water  rat's  or  mole's  fur,  ribbed  with 

yellow  silk  thread. 
Hackle. — Light  blue  dun. 
Whisk. — Blue  dun  cock's  hackle. 

ORANGE   FISH   HAWK    (HACKLE   FLY) 

Body. — Orange  silk,  ribbed  with  gold. 
Hackle. — Gray. 

OLIVE   DUN 

Wings. — Starling. 
Body. — Dyed  olive  quill. 
Hackle. — Dyed  yellow  olive. 
Whisk. — Olive  dun  cock's  hackle. 

SOLDIER  PALMER  (HACKLE  FLY) 

Body. — Red  wool,  ribbed  with  gold. 
Hackle. — Red  cock's  from  head  to  tail. 

SILVER   SEDGE 

Wings. — Landrail. 

Body. — White   floss    (or  white  condor  quill), 

ribbed  with  fine  silver  wire. 
Hackle. — Pale  sandy  ginger  cock,  from  head  to 

tail. 

(The  well-known  Beaverkill  is  patterned  after 
this  fly.) 

[2141 


Appendix 

RED   SPINNER 

Wings. — Pale  starling. 

Body. — Red  floss,  ribbed  with  silver  gimp  or 
thread;  or  white  horse-hair  dyed  brown- 
red. 

Hackle. — Red  game  cock. 

Whisk. — Red  cock's  hackle. 

WHITE   MILLER 

Wings. — Pure  white. 

Body. — White  silk,  ribbed  with  gold. 

Hackle—  White. 

COACHMAN 

Wings.— White. 
Body. — Peacock  Herl. 
Hackle. — Red  cock's. 

BLACK   GNAT 

Wings. — Pale  starling. 

Body. — Peacock  quill,  dyed  black. 

Hackle. — Black  starling. 

MR.  HALFORD'S  LATEST  PATTERNS 

Green  May-fly,  male  and  female. 
Brown  May-fly,  male  and  female. 
Spent  gnat,  male  and  female. 
Olive  dun,  male  and  female. 
Dark  olive  dun,  male  and  female. 
Olive  spinner,  male  and  female. 
Pale  watery  dun,  male  and  female. 
[215] 


Appendix 

Pale  watery  spinner,  male  and  female. 
Iron-blue  dun,  male  and  female. 
Iron-blue  spinner,  male  and  female. 
Blue  winged  olive,  male  and  female. 
Sherry  spinner,  male  and  female. 
Black  gnat,  male  and  female. 
Welshman's  button,  male  and  female. 
Olive  (red)  spinner,  female. 
Brown  ant. 
Small  dark  sedge. 
Medium  sedge. 
Cinnamon  sedge. 


[216 


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